


Small Numbers Formidable

by luxover



Category: Band of Brothers, Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2018-09-22 01:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 21,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9576608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxover/pseuds/luxover
Summary: HBO War tumblr ficlets.





	1. Brad/Ray; Kuwait.

**Author's Note:**

> Work title from the George Washington quote, "Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all."
> 
> Ficlet inspired by [this amazing GK edit.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/156802689547/diosia-i-dont-want-to-be-around-you-i-dont)

Ray comes to find him as he’s working on the Humvee, wiping down the turret for the Mark-19.

“Brad,” he says, and he says it quietly.

Brad hears him, but continues to focus on what he’s doing. They’ll be the lead vehicle; they need the Mark-19 to work, need the turret to do it’s job, to move without catching. It keeps catching as it turns towards their three o’clock. Brad has to fix that.

“Homes, come on,” Ray says again. Brad can see him out of the corner of his eye, and he looks tired. Brad’s tired, too. He didn’t sleep at all last night, and wonders if Ray didn’t for the same reasons.

They kissed last night. Or rather, Brad had kissed Ray. He did it right there in Kuwait, pressed against Ray pressed against a supply truck, the whole camp quiet and still. Ray’s ragged breathing was the loudest sound in the world, and with one hand on the side of Ray’s neck, Brad could feel Ray’s heart racing.

Afterwards, Ray had just looked at him like he didn’t know what to say. Brad stepped back and apologized, and left Ray standing there with his mouth hanging open, his eyebrows nearly at his hairline.

Brad fucked up. Brad knows that, and it’s on him.

He can hear Ray sigh as he reaches for a screwdriver. He needs to take the turret apart, grease it down, replace the screws. He can’t have it doing this when they’re out there.

“This mute act is getting old, homes,” Ray tells him.

“Forget it, Ray,” Brad finally snaps. He doesn’t look up to see how it lands, just keeps working on the screws. “Let it drop.”

“But I don’t _want_ to let it drop,” Ray argues. “Homes, I was just—I was just _surprised_. You’re way out of my league. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, I’m not fucking kidding you,” Brad says. He wouldn’t, not about that, not with Ray.

The truth is that he kissed Ray because he wanted to. He wasn’t thinking about having to drive through sabka fields or sleep in graves or clear houses. He wasn’t thinking about Iraq or their tin can Humvee. He was just looking at Ray, and Ray was just looking right back, smiling, and Brad wanted to know why Ray was always smiling at him like that, like it was better than using words.

 _What?_ Ray had asked. Brad wanted to kiss him, and since he wasn’t thinking, he did.

But Brad can’t afford that. Can’t afford to not be thinking. They’ve got work to do. They’re not here for that.

“Homes,” Ray says again. He pauses. Brad focuses on taking apart the base plate of the turret, and a second later, Ray reaches out and grabs Brad’s wrist. It’s innocent enough, except for how it makes Brad lose track of what he’s doing. The screwdriver clatters to the floor. “I want to, though.”

He says it like that’s the reason Brad pulled away, as if Brad doesn’t already know that. Of course Brad knows that. Brad doesn’t kiss anyone that’s not a sure thing these days; he’d never have kissed Ray if he didn’t know. But Brad still shouldn’t have, and wasn’t thinking at the time. It’s his career on the line, and Ray’s. Their lives.

Brad pulls his wrist back.

“It was a mistake,” he says. He doesn’t really know how else to say it. They’re going to war.

“Bullshit,” Ray says.

Brad picks up the screwdriver again. He has a strange feeling that everything between him and Ray is hanging on this exact moment, dependent on how Brad handles it, and yet all he can think about is Ray’s bony knees and how easy it would be to cover one them with his hand when they sit next to each other. It’s weak pussy shit, a fucking disgrace and an affront to his warrior spirit. Brad can’t believe himself.

“Ray,” Brad says, only then he doesn’t know what to say next. He can’t say any of the things he wants to say. It makes him wonder what Ray would be saying to him if they weren’t in Kuwait, and weren’t in the Corps. He wonders if Ray would be as careful as Brad is being now, if Ray would be just as worried about fucking things up further.

Brad takes out the last screw, still focusing on his hands. He can just barely see Ray, off to the side, biting his nails. He does that when he’s frustrated, a tell he’s had since they met.

Brad finally looks over at him, but Ray doesn’t realize it. Instead, Ray squints up towards the sky, the line of his neck long, and Brad wants to trace it with his fingers, his tongue. He knows so much about Ray, but he wants to know everything, how Ray would react to all the ways Brad wants to touch him, what Ray thinks about when he’s not talking, what Ray really means when he is. He wants a Ray that he can’t get in Kuwait, and that won’t exist in Iraq.

Brad’s never wanted something he couldn’t have before. He hates it, and hates Ray for it, too.

So he gives in, says, “Later. _After_ ,” and hopes Ray gets it.

Ray glances over; Brad glances away.


	2. Brad/Ray; Ray says it first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this gifset](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/156492148187/radcolbert-i-need-my-rto-ray-says) of Brad internally freaking out whenever Ray is upset.

Ray says it first.

He says it before things turn to shit in Iraq: before Walt and the blue car, before Trombley and the kid, before Kocher and the prisoner. They’ve been fucking on and off for months, ever since Ray climbed into Brad’s grave in Afghanistan, scraping his teeth over Brad’s dirty neck and bringing himself off against Brad’s thigh, but they’ve never actually _said_ it. Never said _anything,_ not about what they’re doing _._ Not until Ray says it in Kuwait, the two of them alone in the tent, Brad trying to order a shield for the turret.

“You’ve done some dumb shit, homes,” Ray tells him, “but this tops the whole fucking list.”

“Shut up, Ray,” Brad says back. He’s got a satphone pressed tight to one ear, but he’s on hold, and doesn’t want Ray to stop talking besides. He likes it when Ray talks. “Daddy’s working.”

Ray snorts and rolls his eyes, but instead of making a dirty joke in reply, he just looks at Brad like Brad is something to look at. He smiles a little, enough to bring out his dimples. If Brad were anyone else, he’d lean in and kiss Ray, because he wants to and always wants to. But Brad’s not anyone else, Brad’s just himself, and Ray keeps looking at him.

“You know, homes, I think I’m in love with you,” Ray says. Brad stops breathing and just stares at him, heart racing, until he’s saved from answering by Q-Tip walking in, rapping _Keep Ya Head Up_ to himself.

Brad thinks about it afterwards. That’s all he _can_ think about, when he’s not thinking about work, about danger close air strikes, about the hamlets. He thinks about it because he _does_ , of course he _does_ , but he’s never said it to anyone since he last said it to her, and doesn’t know how to start now.

He watches Ray sometimes, though, and he tries to say it. Ray burns his face on a portable stove, and Brad means to tell him, but he can’t even say Ray’s name, just keeps calling Ray “my RTO.” He tries it again later, goes over the words again and again in his head, and then tells Ray—tells everyone—“Watch your sectors.” He even tries to say it when they’re about to cross the bridge outside Nasiriyah, but it comes out sounding like, “Careful with the Ripped Fuel,” which is still valid, but not what Brad means.

Brad’s a fucking weak-ass, lay-and-pray, sissy-bitch piece of chickenshit, and he knows it. Eventually, he stops trying to say it at all, but it still eats at him, the fact that Ray’s thinking they’re not on even footing. Ray needs to know that Brad only fucks around with prostitutes, and that Brad would never pull that kind of shit with his best friend. Brad can’t say it, but Ray needs to know that Brad does, too, that Ray’s not alone in that.

But Ray’s never going to know if Brad doesn’t man the fuck up, and Brad feels like an asshole for it.

They make it through a lot of dumb shit together, him and Ray and the whole platoon. They make it through the bombs in the gardens and the airfield and the ambush, and they make it through the cigarette factory. They make it through the uppers, through the Iraqi gin, through ten days of peanut butter. They make through the football game, Ray’s cheeks red and ruddy from scrubbing his face with the heels of his palms as Brad stalks after him, adrenaline pumping as if he had been the one in the fight.

“You know, homes,” Ray tells him, the two of them a hair’s breadth apart from one another, hidden behind a supply truck. “You’ve been acting kinda gay.”

“You’re the one who just cried during a football game,” Brad points out, looking down at Ray’s face. The corners of Ray’s mouth are curved upwards, just a little.

“Ain’t no shame in your game,” Ray reassures him, and he says it like a joke. Only then he adds seriously, “You look like you’re having a panic attack every time I get upset.”

Brad feels something in his chest stutter—his heart, maybe—and he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t really know what Ray means by that. Brad _should_ know, since it’s about him. So Brad tries, “Dealing with a grown man’s grade school, teeny-bopper meltdowns isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”

“Nah, homes,” Ray says. “I meant, you get upset when I get upset.”

And Brad just—he still doesn’t fucking get it. Of course he gets upset. Why the fuck should he want to see Ray flip out? Ray’s his best friend. Ray’s his RTO. He hates it when Ray snaps or when he’s angry. So Brad stares blankly at Ray and asks, “What the fuck is your point?”

Ray rolls his eyes. “You think being the Ice Man makes you so slick, but I’ve got your number, Brad.”

“I didn’t know hicks could count,” Brad says, deflecting. He’s still staring down at Ray, wary because he doesn’t know where this is going, and doesn’t like that.

“We can,” Ray says, and then adds, “I can even reach twenty on a good day,” and Brad still doesn’t get it, but Ray’s looking up at him, the corners of his eyes creased by his smile, and suddenly Brad stops caring. He figures that it’s alright if he never understands what the fuck Ray is talking about, so long as Ray keeps smiling at him like that.

“Shut up, Ray,” Brad says to fill the silence and the tiny bit of space between them. He thinks of how badly he had wanted to kiss Ray all those weeks ago, when they were ordering the shield for the turret, and how badly he wanted to kiss Ray every step of the way through Iraq. They never really had the time—always with the other guys, always working, always just trying to make it out the other side in one piece—but still, Brad had thought about it a lot.

There behind the supply truck, he cups one hand around the sharp curve of Ray’s jaw and finally stops thinking about it.


	3. Brad/Ray; Instagram Aesthetic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this amazing Gen Kill Instagram aesthetics post](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/155185169527/generoes-generation-kill-au-instagram) which I am forever obsessed with.

Brad’s just finishing filling up the tank on his bike by the time Ray walks out of the mini-mart, a Choco Taco in one hand and a King Cone in the other. He’s wearing an old denim jacket and black skinny jeans that have gone baggy at the knees, his Elvis shades on top of his head. Despite the fact that Ray was complaining about his bacne only a few hours ago, Brad still thinks Ray is the hottest thing he’s ever seen. **  
**

Of all the fucking ironies in the world, he _would_ end up dating a buck-toothed, sister-fucking, inbred hick.

“I didn’t want anything,” Brad says when Ray’s close enough to hear, and Ray snorts.

“Wake up, homes,” Ray says. “You’re dreaming if you think either of these are for you.” He licks the King Cone suggestively and Brad rolls his eyes.

“I’m going to outlive you by twenty years if you keep eating that crap,” Brad tells him.

“Nah,” Ray says. “Plus, Slava just told me that a balanced diet is an ice cream in each hand, so science has spoken.”

“Who the fuck is Slava?”

“Guy at the register,” Ray says, and he jerks his chin down suddenly in an effort to make his sunglasses fall forward on his face. It only sort of works, and Brad reaches out to straighten them, tucking both arms behind Ray’s ears. “Thanks, homes.”

Brad wants to kiss him, but instead says, “Hurry up. I want to get to the hotel before it’s dark.”

“ _Motel_ ,” Ray corrects. “And you’ve been making me ride bitch through the middle of nowhere for hours; you can wait five minutes.”

“Just because you wrote _wilderness_ on my map doesn’t mean it stopped being Colorado,” Brad says, and he’s annoyed by the delay, but when Ray holds his hand out, Brad still takes a bite of the Choco Taco.


	4. Brad/Ray; Cancun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by an anon who asked for [Brad/Ray, on vacation somewhere warm like Cancun (think trashy spring break vibe).](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/156850686022/bradray-road-trip-across-the-us-or-on-vacation)

They’re in Cancun sometime after Ray’s paddle party, because Brad wanted to spend his leave on the beach and Ray wanted to spend his newly acquired freedom with Brad. Also, because Brad vetoed every other idea that Ray had, including but not limited to renting a house down the block from MTV’s Beach House. So: Cancun.

“Bet you regret it now, huh, Brad?” Ray says. Their hotel is fucking packed with drunk spring breakers in Mardi Gras beads, and the DJ is blasting all sorts of gay-ass music. Ashlee Simpson and 50 Cent. Uncle fucking Kracker. Ray loves it, but because he loves Brad more, he lets Brad steer them towards the back of the crowd, still packed in there but a good ways away from the stage.

“The fuck are you talking about?” Brad asks. His chest is just starting to turn pink in the sun. It’s a delicate process, but in about ten minutes, Ray plans to suggest that Brad put on some sunscreen in the hopes that, once they’re inside, Brad’ll just want to fool around instead.

Ray knows Brad. All Brad needs to survive is meat: either a nice steak or Ray’s cock, and it doesn’t seem like Brad’s too picky about it.

“You could be having a circle jerk with Nick Cannon and Carson Daly right now,” Ray explains, and when his heart-shaped sunglasses start to slide down his nose from sweat, he pushes them back up with just his middle finger. He does it on purpose, just to be an asshole, because for all that Brad likes to play the _unaffected_ card, nothing gets his rocks off faster than putting Ray in his place.

“I just spent an eight-month tour in the desert, Ray,” Brad says. He has to raise his voice over whatever song is playing, and he leans in towards Ray as he does. His Corona brushes Ray’s arm, still cold. “I’m not spending my libo on Long Island.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Ray complains. He’s somehow acquired more beaded necklaces than he knows what to do with, and they make a shit ton of noise every time he moves. He’s like white trash maraca.

Brad doesn’t respond, and Ray looks at him, wondering if he’s looking back or not. It’s hard to tell what the fuck his eyes are doing behind his Oakleys. At any rate, Ray takes the chance to just look at Brad, just because he wants to. Brad’s hot as shit, the homo Viking son of the 1998 Playboy Playmate of the Year and whichever Greek god has the biggest cock, but he gets weird about it whenever Ray looks at him just for the sake of looking. It’s like maybe Brad’s worried that Mattis’s DADT Alarm will start going off, and that Brad’ll get kicked from the Corps. Ray gets it. Ray knows that Brad’s Career; he tries not to push it.

When Ray looks away, he doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart. He looks away because he’s a selfish bastard who somehow struck gold. He’s half a retard, a debased hick with no manners and a shit education; he’s got a fucked-up grill, acne on his chest, and burn scars still on his face from Fruity Rudy’s portable stove. _And_ , if Ray’s being completely honest, his dick is really nothing to write home about. He knows he’s batting way out of his league, with Brad. If all it takes is looking away, well—fuck, Ray would give up a lot more than that.

Ray can get Brad naked at home and look all he wants.

“What?” Brad asks. It makes Ray glance back over. Brad’s smiling a little, just the tiniest bit, something less predatory than usual and instead just sort of… soft.

“Homes, are you drunk?” Ray asks.

“Ray,” Brad says, clearly insulted, and then he pauses. Ray wonders what he’s thinking.

But Brad doesn’t say anything after that, and Ray just stares at his own reflection in Brad’s sunglasses. He’s got more of those fucking beads on than he had realized, and they almost cover up the star tattoos on his chest.

Brad’s not wearing any beads, his chest smooth and on full display. Ray wants to run the flat of his thumb over one of Brad’s nipples, just because they’re on spring break in Mexico, but he can’t do that out here, and so instead, almost without thinking, he nudges Brad’s shoulder with the hand that’s holding his drink. When Brad gets with the program, Ray passes him his strawberry daiquiri.

Ray expects Brad to ask it again— _What?_ —but this time, he just watches Ray and lets Ray do whatever.

Ray takes Brad’s Oakleys off and puts them on top of his head. They probably won’t stay there, considering Ray’s own sunglasses are already tucked behind his ears, but Ray can’t bring himself to give a shit. Brad’s staring at him the way he always does when they’re alone and he forgets how to use his words like a normal person, like when Ray cooks breakfast in just his briefs, or works out in one of Brad’s shirts. Ray likes that.

He just likes the way Brad’s looking at him, right there in the middle of the crowd. Ray doesn’t look away even as he reaches down and picks a strand of beads out from among the rest, pulling it up over his head. The necklace is shiny and green. Brad ducks his head a little, but Ray still has to stand on the tips of his toes in order to loop it around Brad’s neck.

Before either of them can say anything, someone bumps into Ray from behind, and Ray stumbles forward into Brad’s space. Their sweaty skin sticks together for a second, and because Ray’s a fucking backwater degenerate, it makes him think of the last time they fucked, back in Brad’s house in Encinitas with the AC broken.

Ray straightens up carefully, and takes back his drink. It’s hotter out than he had realized. He reaches over and tugs on the bottom of Brad’s necklace, just to be annoying.

“Now you’ve got some spring break spirit, homes,” Ray finally says, breaking the silence. He tugs the necklace again, and Brad darts a hand up to grab Ray’s wrist.

“You’re starting to burn,” Brad tells him evenly, his fingers tightening their grip just a fraction. He’s still looking at Ray, but now he’s smiling, too, sharp and confident. “You should go put on some sunscreen.”

It takes another second of Brad still staring at Ray for Ray to understand what’s going on. Brad is using Ray’s own line against him like a plagiarizing motherfucker. Ray would laugh, but he doesn’t get to see this side of Brad all that often, the side that hits on him in public, and he likes the reminder. Fuck yeah, Ray-Ray’s got it going on. Even surrounded by all the hot co-eds that Cancun has to offer, Brad’s still warm for Ray’s form. 

Kind of can’t resist it, actually.


	5. Brad/Nate; Cambridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt, [Brad/Nate, after Nate leaves the Corps.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/157087022367/bradnate-cambridge)

Nate’s writing a paper on culture and politics in the Middle East when someone knocks on the door to his apartment. He’s not really expecting anyone, but figures that it’s probably one of the guys in his study group looking to swap notes or complain about page length. Nate would have put money on it being Mosi, the twenty-two-year-old from Washington state, which is why it’s such a surprise when he opens the door and sees—

“Brad.” Nate can hear the surprise in his own voice.

“I’ll be honest,” Brad starts. He’s smiling a little, wearing jeans and a white tee, and Nate almost doesn’t recognize him, except for how Nate recognizes him completely. “When Gunny told me that you left the ranks of the military elite just to grow your hair out and and become a socialist hippie college student, hellbent on saving the world with liberal naïveté and the kumbaya agenda, I thought he was exaggerating.” A beat goes by, and when Nate doesn’t say anything, still too stunned that Brad’s _here_ , in _Cambridge_ , Brad adds, “Sir.”

The _sir_ shakes Nate back into the moment.

“Don’t call me that,” he says because he can, and he rolls his eyes.

“Sir?”

“Yeah,” Nate says, even though he knows by Brad’s tone that Brad was looking for clarification. “I’m not an officer anymore.”

“Right,” Brad says. He doesn’t ask to come in, but Nate steps aside anyway, leaving the doorway clear. He’s still surprised that Brad’s here, and seems to have lost the words needed to tell Brad that it’s good to see him.

“Want a beer or something?” Nate asks instead.

“Beer would be good,” Brad agrees, stepping inside, and he scans the apartment. Not out of nosiness, Nate knows, but out of habit: clear the immediate threat area, clear the corners, locate all inhabitants.

“It’s just us,” Nate tells him.

It’s only when he goes to open the fridge that Nate takes a minute to process what the fuck is going on. He almost wishes Gunny had given him a heads up, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. Nate’s still Nate, and Brad’s always going to be Brad.

And that’s the problem, Nate thinks.

Two beers in hand, Nate heads back into the living room. Brad’s leaning over Nate’s desk, reading Nate’s paper, but he doesn’t comment on it, and so Nate doesn’t feel the need to, either. Instead, Nate nudges Brad’s arm with one of the bottles, and then hands it over when Brad reaches for it.

“Thanks,” Brad says. He walks over to sit on the couch and adds, “Nice bike.”

Nate breathes out a laugh. Brad’s all about bikes, sure, but the bike in the corner is a road bicycle.

“I won a national championship in cycling while I was at Dartmouth,” Nate says before he can think about it, and he can practically see Brad file that information away, just by the look on his face.

Brad shakes his head and asks, “What aren’t you good at?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I probably would be,” Brad agrees, and he looks at Nate in a way that Nate tries not to read into. And if he doesn’t read into it, Nate doesn’t know what the hell it means.

“Why are you here, Brad?” he asks, and it’s rude of him, he knows that, but he also needs to _know_.

Brad showing up like this is crazy, and almost everything Nate wants. He’s had dreams about this—or, not dreams, but things he thought of at night as he brought himself off in his own hand: Brad coming over, wanting to see Nate. Brad being gay. Brad wanting Nate.

It was easier to ignore in Iraq.

“Just thought I’d drop by to see a friend,” Brad says evenly.

It would be nice, Nate thinks, to go with that. It would be nicer still if that really were the case, but it’s not, and it’s never going to be.

“We were a lot of things,” Nate tells him honestly, “but we were never friends, Brad.”

Brad doesn’t respond. Instead, he just stares at Nate, and Nate doesn’t know why. Nate’s comment shouldn’t be a surprise to him; he and Nate never shot the shit, or talked about home, or their families. He and Nate talked business, talked Captain America and Encino Man and needing LSA. He and Nate talked survival. Hell, Gunny had to tell Brad where Nate even _was_.

They’re practically strangers, looking at it like that.

“Nate,” Brad finally says, but then he falls silent, like maybe he just said Nate’s name to get his attention.

Unnecessary, Nate thinks. Brad always has his attention.

The silence between them drags out, and Nate wonders if he’s supposed to fill it. He wonders, idly, why Brad’s really here, but doesn’t care enough to ask a second time.

Everything else aside, it’s just nice getting to look at him again.

“It’s good to see you, Brad,” Nate finally says, and it’s the most honest thing he’s ever said in his life.

“I meant it when I said it,” Brad tells him, a response that doesn’t make sense. “That I trusted you.”

“Oh,” Nate replies. He doesn’t know what Brad means, so he says, “Even if you didn’t, I’m out of the Corps now—”

“But _I’m_ not,” Brad says, and Nate _knows_ that. Brad still just looks at Nate and looks at Nate and looks. He’s always looking at Nate like that, and it drives Nate crazy. Brad says again, “I trust you, Nate.”

And maybe it’s like Ray always said, that Nate left the Corps and got his brains back, or maybe it’s because Brad flew in all the way from California, just to be where Nate was. Regardless, it hits Nate then, suddenly. Nate should have realized it sooner, what Brad was saying and was always saying, but Nate never for a second thought to ask. And, more realistically, Nate never for a second thought Brad would tell.

In a way, Brad still hasn’t.

“ _Oh_ ,” Nate says again, different this time, and maybe it’s in his voice, or maybe it’s written all over his face, but either way, Brad seems to get what he means.

“It’s good to see you, too, Nate,” Brad tells him, an echo of Nate earlier, and sitting there, sharing the couch in Nate’s shitty Harvard apartment, Brad reaches out to touch Nate’s wrist.

Nate flips his hand over, and Brad takes it.


	6. Luz/Toye; College AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the Luz/Toye prompt of [whatever I wanted.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/157044600087/for-your-ficlet-prompts-i-dont-know-what-the) Idea inspired by one of those AU lists floating around tumblr...

Joe’s dead tired from pulling an all-nighter by the time he makes it out of his dorm, and to make matters worse, it’s pouring buckets out. He’d just skip, which most of his friends seem to have no problem doing, but he’s got a paper due, and so instead Joe grabs an umbrella and starts the trek, through the mud and the puddles and the misery.

“Fuckin’ Gonorrhea,” he curses under his breath, because the lecture was Bill’s idea. Only then, in typical Bill fashion, Bill bailed on him to go chase a skirt in _Intro to Gender and Sexuality_ , leaving Joe alone to learn about the Nazis. Joe’s studying engineering; the hell does he need to know about European history? Nothing, that’s what.

He’s about halfway there when someone crashes into him from behind, nearly sending him face-first onto the wet sidewalk. Joe catches himself at the last minute—or, he thinks he does, until he realizes that whoever knocked him down also now has him pinned upright, one of their arms linked through one of Joe’s.

Joe does what any rational person would do and turns around, fist raised to deck the guy in the face.

“Whoa!” the guy says, wet hair flopping in his eyes. He’s attractive, not that that’s the first thing Joe notices. What Joe notices first is how he flinches back and bats Joe’s hand away, before reaching out again to make sure Joe’s steady on his feet. Then, Joe notices how good the guy looks. “Shit, sorry! I just need your umbrella!”

“Get your own fucking umbrella,” Joe says, scowling and pulling his arm free. The rain is coming down hard now; like hell he’s giving his umbrella away.

“No, no,” the guy says. He’s smiling like this is funny, holding his backpack in front of himself and pressing up into Joe’s space so that the two of them are out of the rain. “I mean, I’m Luz. We have—You’re going to _Contemporary Europe_ , right? Me, too.”

Joe looks at the guy, Luz. He doesn’t recognize him. Joe thinks he would definitely have remembered Luz, if they took the same lecture, even though there’s at least two hundred students sitting in on it. It’s just that Luz fits the bill, for Joe: he’s gutsy, he’s got a nice smile, he’s hot as hell.  

He’s out of Joe’s league.

“Okay?” Joe says. He makes a face like, _so?_

“ _So_ ,” Luz stresses, “final papers are due today.” He hugs his backpack tighter to his body. “If mine gets soaked, I’m screwed. Forty percent of our grade, can you believe that?”

“Yeah,” Joe says. Luz’s shoulder keeps bumping into Joe’s with each step, and it’s shaking Joe’s concentration. He tries to think of something to say, but draws a blank. “I got the syllabus, too.”

Luz huffs a laugh under his breath and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luz says. “Besides, the way I see it, you owe it to me to let me share the umbrella.”

“I don’t even know you,” Joe points out, and Luz tilts his head like he’s conceding the point.

“True,” he says. “But you set the curve on our last exam, and I’m here to tell you, you set it way too high.”

And there are a lot of things that Joe wants to say to that, things like, _So study more_ , or, _How’s that my problem?_ but he recognizes that both of those are things that Bill would probably smack him for later on, so he says nothing.

It’s unbelievable. The hottest guy Joe’s seen all semester is talking to him, and he has to choose now to forget the English language. Fucking embarrassing, is what it is; he’s worse than Julian stuttering out a _hello,_  trying to buy a girl a drink at Toccoa.

They walk a couple more steps in silence, Joe mentally cursing himself out, and then with no preamble, Luz says, “So I know this is weird because I still don’t know your name, but d’you want to go out sometime? Or study together or something?”

Joe blinks. He looks over at Luz, and Luz is alternating between looking out at at the street and looking right back at Joe. He’s got this twist to his lips like he thinks it’s a long-shot, but had to ask anyway.

It’s the dumbest fucking thing, Joe thinks, and Luz doesn’t even realize.

“Name’s Joe,” Joe says. Luz’s entire face creases with his smile.

Joe tries not to stare.


	7. Brad/Ray; DADT Repeal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt, [Brad/Ray, DADT repeal.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/156956905422/bradray-dadt-repeal)

If Ray weren’t so certain that he was dating an emotionless robot with a giant horse cock and an affinity for military-grade weaponry, he’d almost think Brad was trying to be romantic, flying all the way out to Nevada, Missouri, a week after the DADT repeal. As it is, Ray’s the one paying for dinner because Brad wouldn’t stop bitching about having to shell out three hundred bucks for the plane ticket, so romance is off the table.

Ray thinks that gives him a bit of leeway when it comes to fucking with Brad about their big gay love.

“So are we gonna talk about how we can fuck in public now without you getting arrested?” Ray asks around a mouthful of spaghetti. He’s not twirling it on his fork or anything that would classify him as having manners, but Brad doesn’t seem to care. Brad never cares when Ray’s being an idiot.

“I’m pretty confident that’s not what it means,” Brad tells him, and he’s doing that thing where he deflects just so he can seem cool and suave. He’s not, though; Ray’s got his number.

“Whatever, homes,” Ray says. “The world is missing out.”

Brad doesn’t respond, so Ray thinks that’s the end of that. It’s alright if it is, too, because Ray’s always known that the Corps matters to Brad in a way it never did to him. Just because Ray’s ready to come out to the world as a raging homosexual doesn’t mean Brad is, and that’s alright. They can stay an X-rated secret so long as everything else between them stays the same, too.

He reaches his fork over to steal the only cut bite of Brad’s chicken parm, and when he looks up, Brad is staring back at him with the dumbest, most constipated expression on his face. Ray smiles around his fork, but Brad doesn’t seem to give a shit about Ray taking his food, which can only mean that he’s worried Ray’s gonna want to run off and elope in California.

“Don’t hurt yourself, homes,” Ray tells him. “I’m not expecting anything.”

Brad lets out a breath and puts down his fork. Ray rolls his eyes.

“It’s not that this isn’t permanent,” he says. “I just… I don’t want to. Ever.”

“Fucking duh, homes,” Ray responds. The DADT repeal just means that Brad won’t get slammed if Ray accidentally slips up; it doesn’t mean Brad’s suddenly a different person who believes in the holy sanctity of marriage or what the fuck ever. Ray doesn’t want that version of Brad, the pussy-bitch romantic Brad who wants rings and shit. That’s next-level gay. Ray likes fucking out of wedlock.

“I’m moving,” Brad says, and he flattens his hands out on the table for a second before letting them relax again. “They’re transferring me.”

“Cool,” Ray says, and he doesn’t understand why Brad’s being so weird about it. They’ve been together since Kuwait, just before OIF, and stayed together through Brad’s station in England, two more deployments to Iraq, another to Afghanistan. Ain’t no place Brad could move that’ll give Ray heartburn. So, just to be annoying, he adds, “Where are we going?”

“Georgia,” Brad says, and Ray’s surprised he’s not making some sarcastic comment about how Ray’s only allowed over if he learns not to put his feet up on the table. “Fort Benning. They want me teaching a bunch of dogface delinquents how to jump.”

“For real?” Ray asks. It better not be a fucking joke, because Georgia’s, like, _right there_. And if Brad’s teaching and not getting deployed, Ray can swing over and visit whenever the fuck he wants. Georgia’s easy street. The fuck is Brad all nervous about? “Then I’m definitely coming over Labor Day weekend for NASCAR, homes. You’ll be fucking right by the Atlanta Motor Speedway.”

“Ray,” Brad says slowly. “I’m asking you to move in with me.”

Ray laughs.

And then Ray just—

Brad sounds like he’s being serious. Brad even looks like he’s being serious, and Ray just—

It’s like his brain has short-circuited. He can’t think properly, because he’d get to see Brad every single fucking day if they lived together. Ray can’t even imagine that, because he literally just thought they were going to keep doing what they’re doing now until the end of time: splitting their lives between two houses, constantly taking time from work to “visit a friend,” careful to never spill the beans, careful to always have a guest room ready. He just never thought they’d actually live together until they were in the same assisted living facility, or shoved into the same urn or whatever.

Still not with the program, Ray says, “You’re asking me to leave paradise.”

“Your hometown is a shithole, Ray,” Brad points out.

“We’ve got good barbecue.”

“Ray,” Brad says. “Move in with me.”

And then slowly, as if he’s not sure that he wants to, or maybe as if he’s not sure how Ray will react, Brad reaches out and take Ray’s hand from across the table.

Ray stares. At his hand, and at his hand _in_ Brad’s hand, and then he glances quickly around the restaurant. Their waiter is taking orders at another table. No one’s paying any attention to them, but Ray’s heart rate is through the roof. They’ve held hands before, sure, but when they were watching tv in Brad’s house in Oceanside, or walking down the hallway to go fuck in Ray’s bedroom. Never in public, never in dark movie theaters or even in the car. If someone sees—or if the repeal doesn’t stick—

“Ray,” Brad says again, and Ray looks at him. He doesn’t even look nervous, because God forbid the Iceman have nerves. Mostly he just looks sure.

He looks like he’s sure about Ray.

“Only if I get to tell your mom we’re living in sin,” Ray says, dazed and skipping right past the _yes_. Brad’s still holding Ray’s hand; he has to know its a _yes_.

“It’s been eight years,” Brad breaks it to him. “If you haven’t shocked her now, you’re not going to.”

“Hope is a precious thing, Brad,” Ray says.

Brad doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s probably a close call. Instead, he pulls his hand back, and Ray would miss it except for how now Ray gets to hold Brad’s hand whenever Brad lets him, which is probably just birthdays and federal holidays, but still. Ray’s pretty fucking pumped about this turn of events.

“I regret this already,” Brad deadpans, and Ray beams.

“Nah, homes,” he says. “You love me.”


	8. Winters/Nixon; McDonald's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who prompted [“its 4 am and im drunk as fuck in a mcdonalds and you have been watching me trying to eat this burger for 30 minutes.”](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/157358326662/winnix-its-4-am-and-im-drunk-as-fuck-in-a) Sorry it's not the meet-cute you probably wanted, and instead it's a whole bunch of already-met-UST.

“This is embarrassing,” Lew says. He’s hunched over a McDonald’s table at three-thirty in the morning, his face propped up by his closed fist, and he looks about two seconds away from face-planting into his Big Mac.

“What is?” Dick asks. He’s the sober one of the two, and was the only sober one back at Harry’s house party.

“This,” Lew says. He gestures vaguely with one hand, and then picks up his burger with uncoordinated fingers. Half of the lettuce falls out of the back.

“I’ve seen you worse than this,” Dick tells him, and of course he has; they live together. Lew just scoffs and takes a bite of bun. Special sauce gets all over his cheek.

“Not— _no_ ,” Lew says, eyes squinting as if the McDonald’s lights were the brightest thing on Earth. “I drink _whiskey_ , Dick. What the hell was in that punch?”

Dick debates what he wants to say, because on one hand, he doesn’t want to rock the boat, but on the other, he really _hasn’t_ seen Lew this drunk before. So he does what he usually does and just goes with the truth, even though it’s probably a mistake.

“The usual, I guess. Harry seemed fine after drinking it.”

“ _Harry_ ,” Lew says like a curse. “I can’t believe…” and then he trails off. His head starts drooping a little, but Dick knows him well enough to know that it’s just from the booze, and not because he’s about to fall asleep.

“Hey,” Dick says. He reaches out and nudges the foil wrapper of the burger, pushing it closer to Lew. “Eat your burger. You’ll feel better with some food in you.”

“I don’t want to,” Lew says.

“I don’t care,” Dick tells him.

Lew looks up and looks at Dick, his cheek still mashed out of shape and resting on his hand. His hair is sweaty, matted to his forehead, and he looks like death warmed over, but Dick still wants to reach over to brush his hair back. He doesn’t, but he wants to.

“Alright,” Lew says, and he takes a bite. “But I’m only doing this ‘cause it’s you.”

“Thanks,” Dick deadpans, but only because otherwise he doesn’t know what he’d say. Maybe he’d just repeat exactly what Lew said to him: _I’m only doing this ‘cause it’s you_. It wouldn’t be any less true, Dick figures, but he also figures that it might mean something completely different, and he doesn’t want to face the truth of that just yet.

Lew eats about half of the burger slowly, so slowly, and Dick just sits there watching, because that’s what friends do. As the clock ticks closer to four, Lew again says that he doesn’t want to eat any more, and this time, Dick allows it.

“Alright,” he says, and he balls up the trash, clears off their table. Lew watches him through half-lidded eyes the entire time, and even though Lew’s so drunk that it can’t mean anything at all, Dick still flushes as if it did.

Lew pries himself out of the booth with little help from Dick, and then the two of them step outside. The cold air feels good on Dick’s cheeks, and helps wake him up a bit. Lew might be a regular party animal, but Dick’s not used to staying out much past ten.

“I’m gonna sleep for a hundred years,” Lew announces suddenly, and then he stumbles, tripping over his own feet. Dick catches him before he falls.

“Wait ’til we get home,” he says, and Lew snorts.

“Hilarious,” Lew tells him.

Lew’s always been the talkative one of the two, and it’s no different when Lew’s drunk; he does most of the talking on their walk back. He alternates between loudly singing songs that Dick’s grandfather used to listen to and telling Dick stories about things that happened earlier that night at the party. More than once, he thanks Dick. _Thanks. Seriously, thanks, I mean it_. _Thank you._

Mostly Dick just tunes him out, and focuses on getting them home in one piece.

When Lew starts listing left and right, unable to walk a straight line, Dick reaches out and wraps one of his arms around Lew’s waist to hold him upright. Lew must not understand what Dick’s doing, because he freezes for a second before throwing his arm around Dick’s shoulders in return. He holds Dick close in a way that is almost exactly and yet nothing at all like what Dick really wants.

Lew’s Dick’s best friend, but he’s also not. Or, he _is_ , but Dick doesn’t want him to be.

Dick hates thinking about it.

“You should come out more often,” Lew says. He’s letting Dick hold more and more of his weight.

Dick shakes his head, because once a month is more than enough for him. He says, “You ever need help getting home, you can call me.”

“Right. Because that’s what I meant,” Lew replies slowly. He sounds close to the edge of sleep, and Dick’s relieved when he can see their apartment building. “D’you ever think about if we…”

Lew doesn’t finish his sentence. Dick doesn’t know if he wants him to.

“Hey,” Lew says. His voice is suddenly clear, but Dick’s been fooled by that enough times in the past to know that it doesn’t mean anything. “I forgot to say thanks.”

Dick turns his head as much as he can, just to look over at Lew. Lew’s cheeks are red.

“Of course,” Dick tells him.

Lew lets out a deep breath. “Still can’t believe I let Harry out-drink me.”

“You’ll get him next time,” Dick assures him, and Lew laughs a little, so quietly that Dick probably wouldn’t have heard it if Lew’s head wasn’t resting on his shoulder.

Outside their apartment building, Dick struggles to prop Lew up against the wall. Lew goes like a rag doll, but the second Dick lets him go, he tilts dangerously to the side.

“Just stay put,” Dick tells him.

Lew says, “I _am_ staying put,” and then nearly sinks into the bushes.

“Christ, Lew,” Dick says, and he struggles Lew upright again. Lew’s a dead weight, and the only way to hold him up is with one arm braced against his chest, just so Dick can dig in his own pocket for his keys.

Lew wraps a hand around Dick’s forearm, the one that’s holding him up. He rubs his thumb back and forth over Dick’s skin and says, “Well, this is a first.”

Dick stills, his key in the lock. He realizes then just how close they are to one another, Dick pinning Lew up against the wall, but he didn’t mean—and it’s hard to take Lew seriously, like this. He shouldn’t, anyway, not with Lew like this.

“Lew,” he says.

He doesn’t know what he means by it, but Lew must, because then Lew’s dropping his hand and saying, “Yeah, sorry.”

He _looks_ sorry, too, which is crazy because there’s nothing to be sorry _about_. But still, Lew’s mouth is twisted to the side, and his eyebrows are furrowed. He’s looking far away and not at Dick, which Dick selfishly doesn’t like. His hair is still matted to his forehead.

Before Dick even realizes he’s doing it, he reaches out pushes Lew’s hair back with his free hand, leaving his keys to dangle in the lock.

Lew hums, and his eyes slip shut.

“Feels good,” he says, and his face smooths out. Dick wants to kiss him.

He doesn’t, but he wants to.

“Come on,” he says instead. “Let’s get you inside.”


	9. Brad/Ray; They Get A Puppy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for the tumblr prompt, [Brad, Ray and a puppy:)](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/160283763402/dude-if-youre-looking-for-ficlet-prompts-hows)

Brad’s the one who wants the dog. **  
**

Ray goes with it because it’s Brad, and Ray knows that despite Brad trying to convince people that he’s the Iceman, he’s not actually an emotionless robot sent from the heavens just to death-deal and do Ray dirty. It turns out Brad actually has other interests, like holding Ray’s hand on the back deck at night and making his niece laugh during piggyback rides, and watching his dog try to go swimming in her water bowl after eating.

Brad’s actually a little bit of a bitch, now that Ray’s gotten to know him.

“You’re confusing the two of us,” Brad says evenly when Ray mentions this. He’s on the floor in their Encinitas love shack, the coffee table pushed aside as he plays tug-of-war with the puppy, a chocolate Lab that Brad insisted Ray pick out. Ray watches from the couch as Brad pulls the dog close by the rope and tells her, “Don’t let Ray corrupt you while I’m gone. He’s an inbred, mannerless hick who barely even understands the rules of NASCAR, and probably doesn’t realize he’s intellectually inferior to you.”

“Fuck you, homes,” Ray says flippantly, “I could write a dissertation on NASCAR and you know it.”

“Just have to learn how to write first,” Brad agrees, which—Ray was a fucking 4.0 nerd in high school, alright? He really _was_ on the motherfucking debate team, and he was good at it, too. Doesn’t explain why he lost the dog debate in the first place, but Ray likes to think it’s because he’s a fucking bleeding heart for Big Gay Brad. Love makes people do crazy shit; Ray doesn’t know what else it could be.

It’s not even that he’s not a dog person. Fuck that, Ray loves dogs. But Ray loves _Brad_ more, and Brad’s never fucking home, and now Ray’s expected to fight some fucking twenty pound puppy for Brad’s attention? Ray doesn’t have much dignity when it comes to getting Brad out of his skivvies, but he does have _some_. If Brad wants to spend all his libo with a puppy rather than a devil dog, that’s on Brad. Ray’s not gonna be his enabler.

“Ray,” Brad says. It shakes Ray out of his thoughts. Brad looks up at him until the puppy growls a little and pulls on the rope in Brad’s hand, and then Brad glances away. “You okay?”

Ray brings his forefinger and thumb together in a circle, the universal sign for _okay_ , and shoots Brad a wink while he’s at it. “Golden, homie.”

“Don’t fuck with me,” Brad says. He’s being serious, sounding like he always did back in Iraq, and Ray can’t help but watch Brad’s give and take with the dog. “What’s up with you?”

“Jesus Christ,” Ray says, exasperated and half-heartedly throwing his hands in the air. _The first rule of Fight Club_ and all that. “You’re not supposed to ask me that. I’m trying to be supportive of your needy libo tendencies right now.”

Brad raises an eyebrow. “When have I ever been needy?”

“How about last night?” Ray says, and he grabs his junk through his jeans, rocks his hips up against the air a few times.

“Again,” Brad says evenly, “confusing the two of us.”

Ray rolls his eyes and smiles, because there’s no point in arguing against the truth. “Whatever, homes. You liked it.”

“Ray,” Brad says. He doesn’t blink and just lets go of the rope, sending the puppy tumbling backwards into Ray’s bare feet. The dog licks Ray’s toes and then takes off again, back to Brad.

Brad just keeps looking at him.

“You bought a fucking _dog_ , dude,” Ray finally gives in and points out. “And she’s cute as fuck, I’ll give you that, but you’re literally going back overseas in a month.”

“ _We_ bought a dog,” Brad tries to point out, but he must realize Ray’s not having that, because his eyebrows furrow and the corners of his mouth pinch tight. He looks at Ray like Ray’s a problem to solve, or like maybe he’s mad at himself because he thinks he fucked up and doesn’t know what he did.

“ _No_ ,” Ray says firmly, and he drops his head back against the couch and shuts his eyes. “I refuse to let you rewrite history like this.”

A minute passes and then the cushion behind Ray’s head suddenly dips. When Ray opens his eyes, Brad is standing right in front of him, hunched over with his hands braced on either side of Ray’s head. He’s blocking out all the light from the ceiling fan, and he looks right at Ray, their faces only inches apart.

“ _We_ bought a dog,” he stresses, and then although he doesn’t move, he glances away and then back at Ray like he’s trying to remember English. 

“Don’t hurt yourself, homes,” Ray tells him, and then he brings his hands up to Brad’s hips. He knows it’s aviator-sporting, flight-suit-wearing, jerking-it-to-Tom-Cruise _gay_ , but Ray’s finding it hard to remember why he’s even mad when Brad’s this close.

The dog yips. Ray rolls his eyes. _Oh, yeah._

“I thought,” Brad starts, and then he stops like that’s a complete sentence. “It’s the next step.”

“The next step to _what_?” Ray asks, because his mouth has always moved faster than his brain. When it hits him, though, his fingers tighten reflexively around Brad’s hips.

Brad’s expression doesn’t change and he stares at Ray like a challenge, but the high points of his cheeks turn red, and Ray likes that. He never gets to see that.

“Homes, we own a _house_ together.”

“And you’re alone in it when I leave,” Brad points out. Ray can’t help but let the corners of his mouth curve upward into a smile.

Maybe Brad’s a little bit of a bleeding heart for him, too.

“Only if you don’t count all my one-nighters,” Ray says, and Brad leans in further.

“There are no one-nighters,” Brad tells him, his lips on Ray’s jaw, and Ray slides his hands up and underneath Brad’s shirt.

_There could be,_ Ray thinks of challenging, but instead he says honestly, “Nah, homes,” and wonders what Brad’s policy is on sex in front of their dog.


	10. Brad/Nate; Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on a tumblr prompt for the Snow Patrol lyric, ["Light up, light up, as if you have a choice."](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/160375461712/did-somebody-say-ficlet-prompts-since-im)

Nate doesn’t go to the Camp Pendleton homecoming.

He doesn’t feel bad about it, all things considered. It’d be weird to be on the other side of it, for one, to be standing there with the other spouses, waiting for the bus of Marines to finally show up after months and months apart. He’d have nothing to say to the other families, and couldn’t tell them the truth. And besides, Nate’s not a spouse. Nate doesn’t know what he is, or if he even is anything anymore.

That’s not exactly fair of him, Nate knows. There’s no way Brad wants him there, and honestly, Nate doesn’t want to be there himself. It would be weird, and people might start thinking along the lines of the truth, and Nate’s career in politics can’t have that any more than Brad’s in the Corps can. It’s just—

It was an ugly fight, is all, even though it was short and neither of them yelled. Nate had planned to visit Brad in England towards the end of his duty, and Brad had booked him a hotel.

_So, what?_ Nate had asked. He was exhausted from a long day, and probably wouldn’t have said anything otherwise, but still hadn’t meant it as an attack. _We have to hide the fact that we’re even friends now?_

Brad had let out a long breath on the other side of the line and started, _Nate, I can’t have you—_

But he never finished the thought and the two of them just sat there, phones pressed against their ears, an ocean between them, until Nate finally said, _I have to go._

_Alright_ , Brad had replied, and that was it.

Nate wonders if Brad’ll even come back to Cambridge now that he’s stateside, or if that’s just it. Maybe he’ll just stay in California. A part of Nate has always expected that’s how things with them would end: quietly, and on two different sides of the country. It’s not like there’s anything of Brad’s left at Nate’s apartment other than a few tech books and a _WIRED_ magazine subscription. Brad has no reason to come back.

Once, during Brad’s first visit out, the two of them in bed and freezing because it was winter and Nate’s first apartment was a piece of shit, Brad had basically said as much. _I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here_ , he had said, his lips moving against the back of Nate’s neck, and Nate doesn’t remember why, because it certainly doesn’t fit the memory, but he remembers smiling and breathing out a laugh.

Because Brad was there, probably. Nate’s always been easy like that when it comes to Brad.

Nate falls asleep on the couch that night, not that he means to. The tv’s still on when he wakes up, C-SPAN on low and a book folded open on his chest. It’s just past one in the morning, and the lights in the living room are bright. Nate squints up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know what woke him up until—

A knock at the door again, and Nate’s heart beats against the inside of his ribcage. There’s only one person that it could be. Of course he knows who it is, or at least who he wants it to be.

Rolling off the couch and to his feet, Nate scrubs an open palm over his face as he crosses the living room. He opens the door before he even realizes his hand is on the door knob, and then there Brad is, looking just as tired as Nate feels, standing in a grey t-shirt and blue jeans, his Corps-issued backpack tossed over his shoulder and a duffle at his feet.

There’s a new scar just over his left eyebrow that Nate’s never seen before, but Brad’s there, in Cambridge, and he’s healthy and whole and standing across the threshold from Nate after having only just gone on libo in California earlier that day, and Nate just—

The feeling starts in his chest but expands so rapidly that Nate’s almost dizzy with it. It’s relief, maybe, but not quite. It’s not disbelief, either, but something else entirely that fills him with helium and threatens to break him right open.

Happiness, maybe. Maybe it’s just happiness.

“Hey,” Brad says seriously, as if that’s all he has to say when they haven’t talked in three weeks or seen each other in months.

And all Nate can suddenly think about is that first night they spent together in Cambridge, how they fucked on Nate’s full-size bed and then hid under all the covers, including the throw blanket that Nate usually kept over the back of the couch in the living room.

_I love you,_ Nate had whispered, not because he was afraid to say it, but just because it was nighttime and everything else was so quiet.

Brad hadn’t said it back, but he had pulled Nate closer and said into the back of Nate’s neck, _I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. We’re never coming back once you graduate,_ and Nate had understood. Brad’s never been good at saying what he meant.

Looking at Brad standing there on Nate’s front steps, Nate’s sorry, too. And maybe Brad can tell. For all his faults, he’s always been perceptive like that, and now he just looks at Nate, just looks and looks at looks, and Nate looks back. He can’t believe how stupid they were being.

And then all of a sudden, Nate just can’t hold it in anymore. He bites his lip trying, but it breaks free and then he’s smiling, big and wide, and Brad’s smiling back, his real smile, nothing sharp or sarcastic to it, and Nate’s so lucky that he actually gets to see it, so fucking _lucky_ , and he can’t believe that they almost threw this away over nothing.

“Hey, yourself,” Nate says back, but Brad’ll get what he means.


	11. Babe/Roe; Post-War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gene’s a little lost, after the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ficlet inspired by [this post-war Eugene Roe edit](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/160711967132/joeliebgottmyheart-eugene-roe-post-war).

Gene’s a little lost, after the war.

He goes home. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go, so he goes home and kisses his mother on the cheek, shakes his father’s hand. He tries to remember what he used to do in Louisiana back when he could still sleep through the night, but he can’t remember. Sometimes he wakes up hearing calls for a medic; other times he wakes up freezing, wondering where Babe went.

Babe’s in Philly. That’s… good. That’s good, Gene knows. Babe’s safe in Philly.

Gene goes to church a lot. He doesn’t like it. It feels a lot like a sin, to not like church, but while he likes the praying, he doesn’t much like how the others look at him as if he’s the only one who made it back, or as if they can’t believe he’s one who did. He goes every Sunday anyway, but mostly that’s because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He reads a lot. Wakes up on the couch with a book open on his chest, no recollection of what he’d been reading, a thin knit blanket draped over his legs. His mother’s pots and pans make faint noises as she nestles them together in the kitchen cabinets, and Gene presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. The sound is so quiet and yet still so similar to a mortar attack.

Sometimes, Gene thinks about what he’d say if he could talk to Babe, if he ever saw him again. He wouldn’t ever want to talk about the war, but he wouldn’t mind talking about the guys, talking about Renee. Gene would call him Edward, too, just to rile him up.  _Hey, Edward. Alright if I come in?_  Gene would ask, and Babe, standing just inside his apartment door, would stare at Gene as if he thought he was dreaming. But he wouldn’t be, and Gene would reach out and press the backs of his fingers into Babe’s chest to snap him out of it, and then Babe would smile, scowl, say,  _How many damn times I gotta tell ya it’s Babe?_  as he tugged Gene inside with warm fingers around Gene’s wrist.

Gene doesn’t leave the bayou, but that’s how it’d go if he did.

Instead, Gene takes a job as a line cook in town, whipping up gumbo and getting as covered with powdered sugar as the beignets he hands over the counter in little cardboard boats. Babe would like everything about the restaurant, Gene thinks: the brightly colored booths, the chipped plates. During the quieter moments, Gene imagines feeding Babe dinner at his restaurant and then taking Babe home for some of his grandmother’s bread pudding. They’d sit on the back porch together with their plates, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, and Gene would still want to kiss Babe, but the want wouldn’t be so unbearable because the heat from Babe’s arm bleeding into his own would be enough.

It happens, but Gene tries to go out of his way to not think like that, because that line of thinking can’t ever end well. Instead, he throws himself into his books and writes plenty of letters to Ralph, and once a week or so he plays baseball with the others who made it back alright. They all smoke Lucky Strikes and the smell reminds Gene of Europe.

_Hey, Doc,_  they say to him. He’s not a doctor and he’s never treated a one of them, and so he tells them to call him Gene. They do, but Gene finds he doesn’t like that much better.

That summer turns out to be hotter than usual, hotter than hell, and Gene gets in the habit of leaving all the windows open, hoping for a breeze. For a long while, he thinks about borrowing the neighbor’s car and driving out along the back roads as far as he can go, just for the change of scenery, but he never does and instead settles for walking down to the tupelo trees lining the water every afternoon.

The knock, when it comes, surprises Gene, because no one has come by looking for him since Mary came looking for a date all those weeks ago. Still, he crosses the living room to answer the door, vaguely aware that in trying to survive the heat, he’s dressed down to his undershirt.

It’s not what he’d wear for company, but Gene’s not expecting any, and so he opens the door.

He blinks, and Babe’s still there.

There’s no doubt about it that it’s Babe. His hair’s a little longer than Gene remembers, his skin a little tanner, and the dark circles under his eyes are gone, but still, it’s Babe. Gene just stares at him through the screen door, and Babe smiles back like Gene’s never seen before.

He looks beautiful. Gene was lonely for him.

"Hey, Doc," Babe says, and it sounds just right. He’s still smiling. "You gonna let me inside, or leave me out here for the mosquitos?"

Gene can’t help but smile back, small but more honest than anything he could possibly say. He tells Babe, "The mosquitos don’t want you," and then pushes open the screen door because he does.


	12. Webster/Liebgott; Coffee Shop AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who asked for [webgott, “Constantly fighting for the best seat in the library/coffee shop/whatever” au.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/173626224577/webgott-constantly-fighting-for-the-best-seat-in)

David walks into the coffee shop with a heavy backpack and the knowledge that if he doesn’t get at least halfway through his paper by the end of the day, he’s fucked. Midterms are always terrible, but David’s taking more credits than he probably should this semester, and he hasn’t slept in two days because of it. He’s tired. He’s hungry. He can barely think straight, and this paper is worth forty percent of his final grade. **  
**

It’s all good though. David’s got it all planned out in his head, exactly how the afternoon is going to go: he’s going to order a giant black coffee, grab his usual table in the back corner, put in his headphones, and then get to work.

He’s already got an outline started. It shouldn’t even be that hard.

Only—

Only that fucking arrogant asshole from BU is sitting at David’s table again, and David doesn’t have the energy to deal with him. Not today, not with this paper hanging over his head.

“I thought last time we agreed this was my table,” David says, walking over before he even orders his drink, and the BU asshole—who David knows is named Joe, based on what’s written on his cups—looks up and smiles.

He’s chewing gum. Smacking it, almost. David hates that.

“Yeah,” Joe says. He’s wearing a white t-shirt, just see-through enough for David see the tattoo a few inches below his collarbone. “Agreed it the time before that, too.”

And that’s the problem, really. That, right there. Joe is an asshole who refuses to cooperate, who hates David because he goes to Harvard, and who doesn’t take anything seriously. David comes here to work, but it seems like Joe only ever comes here to annoy David. It’s hard to tell; sometime’s Joe has a book with him, but sometimes not.

“So then can you move?” David bites out.

Joe puts his book down, spread open to save his spot, and leans back in his chair. “Sorry, Harvard. It’s my day.”

And—okay.  _Okay_. Out of desperation, David did agree to splitting ownership of the table by days of the week. But it’s  _David’s_  day, and that’s  _David’s_  table. Really, it should be David’s table every day; he’s been coming to this coffee shop since he started at Harvard, but only met Joe this past semester. If Joe actually cared, where was he the past few years? Not at Currahee Coffee, that’s for sure.

David doesn’t even really know how this whole thing started. They’re not friends or anything; they argue over the back table because it has the best light, and it’s away from the front counter. Who the fuck fights over a coffee shop table? It’s childish, and David certainly never has time for it, but something about Joe just gets David going, gets under his skin and makes him itch, and so David bitches and bickers and argues.

 _Hey_ , David had said the first time. He was there to read and Joe was just playing around on his phone.  _Mind if we swap tables? I’m writing a paper, and the light’s better over here._

Joe had given him the once-over, stared long and hard at David and his Harvard sweatshirt and the stack of books he brought with him, and had said,  _No can do._  He smiled like he always smiles when he gets on David’s nerves, and brushed his hair back with one hand. David’s eyes followed the motion, and Joe added, _I need the light_.

He waved a book, one that David hadn’t seen him reading, and David felt like a jerk for it. He was about to apologize, but then Joe said,  _I know you Harvard types think you’ve got the market cornered, but the rest of the world can read, too, you know._

And just like that, David couldn’t stand him.

“If you’d look at a calendar,” David tells him now, standing there in Currahee, “you’d realize it’s Saturday, and it’s my table.”

“Sure,” Joe says easily. “Except it’s Sunday.”

David blinks. “What.”

“It’s Sunday,” Joe repeats. “It’s my day.” David wants to reach and stretch out the laugh lines at the corners of Joe’s eyes with the pad of his thumb, just so he doesn’t have to look at them.

“Are you  _fucking_  kidding me?” David says, mostly to himself. He’s so fucking sleep-deprived that he thought he had a whole extra day, but checking his phone, he sees that he was wrong. Now, his paper is due at midnight, and David has to write the whole thing in one go.

Joe must think David’s talking to him, because then he mocks, “Well, if you’d look at a calendar…”

“Jesus Christ, would you just shut up?” David snaps. Forty percent of his fucking grade rests on this paper, and suddenly  _this_ —the bickering and the taunting and the whatever else. David doesn’t have  _time_  for this. He blinks hard, tries to get his shit together for the long haul, and debates heading back home, or to the library.

“Hey, Harvard,” Joe says. He looks worried, almost. “You okay?”

“No,” David answers honestly, and regrets it the second he does. More fuel for Joe’s fire, or whatever. More for Joe to throw back in his face later on. Only, once the  _no_ is out, David can’t seem to put the brakes on anything else he’s thinking, and he ends up saying, “I just haven’t slept in forty-eight hours and I thought this paper wasn’t due until Monday, only now  _tomorrow’s_  Monday, and I’m screwed. I don’t want to argue with you about a table. It’s a  _table_ , and I have fifteen pages to write. What was I even  _thinking_? I mean, what the fuck am I even doing here?”

Joe stares at him with raised eyebrows, surprised, probably, that David said something that wasn’t just a cutting remark. David’s beyond caring at this point, so long as he doesn’t accidentally tell Joe how attractive he is, or how much David actually likes him, or how sometimes, when Joe’s especially witty with his retorts, David thinks about asking him out.

Joe’s eyebrows raise even higher. Maybe David said all of that out loud; he doesn’t know. A beat later, Joe stands up. He picks up his book, and David makes himself look away from Joe’s long fingers.

“One time offer,” Joe says. “Seat’s yours if you want it.”

David lets out a deep breath that he hadn’t even realized he was holding. He says, “Thanks. Seriously. I mean it.”

And he does. He does mean it. He drops his backpack on the floor and then drops himself heavily into the chair. Joe says, “Yeah, no problem,” and with a shrug, he walks away.

David tries not to watch him leave. Instead, he takes a second to get his shit together. Just a second, because that’s all he has, and then he sets up his laptop, pulls out all his highlighted readings. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes and tells himself,  _It’s just a paper. Nothing new._

When David looks up again, Joe is sitting in the chair on the other side of the table, sliding one of two coffees over.

“How the hell are you gonna write on no sleep if you don’t have any caffeine?” Joe asks, staring at David like he expects another confrontation.

David looks at the coffee, at  _Harvard_  written on the side in marker, and then back to Joe. He gets it now, he thinks. How Joe operates.

“My name’s David,” David says pointedly, a peace offering in return, and he pulls the coffee closer to himself.

“It has manners!” Joe crows, and then he adds, more seriously, “I’m Joe.”

David smiles at Joe, a habit of introductions more so than anything else, and slowly, Joe smiles back. It’s nice, Joe smiling with nothing sharp behind it.

“Knock it off, Harvard,” Joe finally says. He finds his page in the book he was reading earlier. “I’m trying to study, here.”

“Jesus, you’re impossible,” David tells him, but he finds that he doesn’t mean it this time.

Joe knocks his foot against David’s under the table, and David gets to work.


	13. Brad/Ray; Back of a Cop Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who asked for ["Brad and Ray first meeting is in the back of a police car. They manage to flee together."](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/173872072762/brad-and-ray-first-meeting-is-in-the-back-of-a)

Ray doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, cuffed up in the back of the cop car, before the officer opens the far door again and guides another guy in. Ray sees his bicep first, straining against the sleeve of his t-shirt, then his face—tan skin, blue eyes, a fucking shiner blooming on his cheekbone—and for an incredibly dumb split-second, Ray wishes he wasn’t a minor so he could actually go to jail and maybe finally get some.

“Sit tight, Marine,” the officer says lightly, closing the door and heading back into the bar, and then it’s just Ray and the biggest, hottest piece of Viking ass he’s ever seen, sitting together on the slick vinyl seats. The guy smells overwhelmingly like beer—not like he’s been drinking it, not like Ray, but like he’s been swimming in it.

“Fuck,” the guy says under his breath, not paying Ray any attention, and then he leans forward and rests his forehead on the nasty steel mesh between them and the front seat. Ray watches him breathe harshly out of the corner of his eye, and then watches as the guy stops moving, stops breathing, and goes full-on fucking catatonic. Meditation or some shit, maybe. Ray wouldn’t have pegged him as the type.

“What is that?” Ray asks. “Hugo Boss?”

The guy lets his head roll to the side, so that he’s looking at Ray. “What?”

“Your cologne,” Ray clarifies, because he’s a little shit, and although the Viking may be jacked as fuck, he’s not any less cuffed than Ray is. “It’s nice. A little hoppy for my tastes, but…”

“You smell like a thirteen-year-old girl,” the Viking points out.

“Bet you’d like that, you sick fuck,” Ray shoots back. “And besides, the ladies love Axe Body Spray.”

The Viking hits Ray with an assessing look. “Do they?”

“No,” Ray admits, and the Viking snorts out a laugh, one that sounds real even though he doesn’t smile at all. “I’m Ray.”

“Brad,” Brad says.

Ray nods. Brad probably wants him to shut the fuck up; it’s the natural human condition, to get sick of whatever the fuck Ray’s saying at any given point, but he can’t help it. He fucking kills it in Debate Club, but that’s really the only place that he does. Usually, everyone else is left begging for him to shut the fuck up, and even then, Ray’s not usually one to oblige.

If they weren’t cuffed, Brad could probably shut him up no problem. He’s got big hands. Ray watches as he shifts in the seat, leaning back and shutting his eyes, splaying his knees wide. His shoulders are going to hurt like a bitch if he sits like that for long, but Ray’s not going to be the one to tell him.

Instead, Ray says, “The underage drinking bit is a little hard for me to argue, but  _fuck_  if I’m gonna admit to spray painting cocks on the side of Nevada High School, the most prestigious and, arguably,  _only_  high school in beautiful, scenic Nevada, Missouri.”

Brad opens his eyes and looks at Ray. He glances pointedly at the flecks of bright pink all over Ray’s black jeans, but graciously doesn’t mention it.

“Why the fuck are you telling me this?” Brad asks.

“Something to do, homes,” Ray explains. “I’ve been in this car like forty minutes before we swung over here to pick your disorderly ass up.”

“It was assault and battery,” Brad corrects.

“I can fucking tell just looking at your busted face, Brad,” Ray says. “But next time, maybe don’t do it here, where everything’s already at least a little bit fucked up and falling apart. Praying on the lower class, you military types.”

“Do you even know a single fucking person in the military?”

“I’m stuck in the back of a cop car with the biggest retard of them all,” Ray says. It doesn’t get the reaction that Ray’s looking for, and instead, Brad rests his head back against the seat and slouches down, closing his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Brad finally agrees. “I must be the biggest fucking retard.”

Something about that just—it doesn’t sit right, with Ray.

“Hey, homes,” Ray says, and it’s the dumbest fucking thing, because if this doesn’t go absolutely 100% right, they’ll be in a worse spot than they already are. And plus, like, he’d only ever thought about it as a theoretical before. He has no idea if it’ll even work, but it’s worth a try, Ray guesses, if for nothing else than for the story. “Could you kick out the back window, if you needed to?” It’s the only one without bars.

“Yes, Ray,” Brad says, eyes still closed. “If it would do me any good to run down the street with my hands cuffed behind my back, looking every bit the  _fleeing felon_  that I would be, then yes, I could.”

Ray nods to himself. Sounds about what he was expecting.

“Hey,” he says again. “Wanna see the wildest fucking thing you’ve probably seen in a long time?”

Brad opens one eye. Ray smiles at him.

“I’m double-jointed like a motherfucker,” Ray says, rolling his shoulders back and then forward, and then back again. And then, when he’s sure Brad’s paying attention, he pops both of his shoulders out and brings his arms up and around, hands over his head until they’re in front of his body.

“What the fuck,” Brad says, but Ray’s got his number and can tell he’s totally impressed. Brad’s face may be alarmingly blank, like a murderer or a psychopath or a Marine who gets into bar fights in Nevada, Missouri, but Ray can read between the lines.

“I know,” Ray says, ridiculously pleased. This will probably go down as his crowning achievement, the one badass thing he’s done in his entire life. And then that’s it, peaked at sixteen. “You got a bobby pin?”

Brad stares blankly at him and doesn’t bother answering

“Great,” Ray complains, throwing his cuffed hands up in the air. “I gotta do everything myself!”

“At this point, I don’t even know  _what_  the fuck you’re doing,” Brad says.

“ _Homes_ ,” Ray tells him. “Trust the process, here.”

Ray shimmies his t-shirt up, revealing his belt and a little bit of skin. Brad’s watching him but not saying anything, and Ray kind of likes that, having Brad’s attention like that. Most people just write him off the second they get to know him.

Ray grabs his belt buckle and tugs hard to the side, shifting his entire belt around in his belt loops. He’s got one of those studded belts that everybody and their mother’s wearing these days, and nearly hidden between some of the studs are a couple of bobby pins, sandwiching the metal and leather.

“I buy shitty paint cans that clog all the time,” Ray explains, pulling one of the bobby pins off and placing it between his teeth so he can tug off the plastic ends. He spits them off to the side, and then gets to bending the remaining wire. “Bobby pins are an easy way to clean ‘em out, and cheap as shit, too. Otherwise, they tell you to use safety pins, but that shit hurts when it’s dark out and all you’ve got is one fucking street light to—”

“Ray.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray says. He shoves the bobby pin into the keyhole of his left cuff, a little awkwardly because of the angle, and then he twists his wrist and the bobby pin at the same time.

It takes a couple of tries, but Brad’s sitting still as shit in his seat, and so Ray knows he’s watching when the first cuff pops open. Ray fucking loves that he’s watching. Because Ray—

Ray’s a huge loser. He’s the biggest fucking loser on both sides of the Mason-Dixon, and he knows it. He’s the kind of guy who spends Friday nights spray painting dicks on the high school walls because he’s got nothing better to do, and anything’s better than being at home. Ray’s a sixteen-year-old virgin with no prospects in sight, who’s probably going to live and go to community college and die, all in this one fucking shithole town. Plus, he’s got bacne and a crooked fucking grill, and the remnants of a terrible stick and poke tattoo that he tried to give himself on his chest and that got infected and scarred over.

But right now?

Right now, to Brad, he’s the coolest fucking dude to ever exist. Brad doesn’t know that Ray practiced lock-picking on his bed at home, or that he’s never actually needed it in real life. Right now, to Brad—the  _hottest_  guy to ever exist—Ray’s the kind of kid that breaks out of cop cars and knows how to pick handcuff locks, just because.

To Brad, Ray’s fucking dope as shit, and Nevada, Missouri better take note.

Ray’s second cuff opens quicker than the first, and when it does, he says, “Thank fuck it was only single lock, or else we’d really be screwed.” When Brad doesn’t say anything, Ray prompts, “Well? Turn around, homes.”

Brad does, looking over his shoulder the entire time like he thinks maybe Ray’s fucking with him, but Ray’s got two usable hands and he makes quick work of Brad’s cuffs.

“Right,” Brad says, rolling out his wrists. “My turn, I guess.”

Ray waggles his hand towards the back window, and Brad rolls his eyes.

“I need—” Brad starts, but then he cuts himself off and just manhandles Ray over to the car window closest to the bar, and closest to where the officer is. Brad’s all muscle, and Ray can feel how warm his skin is as they’re pressed up against one another, just before Ray gets situated. Then Brad spins in the seat, too, so that his feet are over the headrests. “Do you see her?”

“No,” Ray says, and suddenly, out of nowhere, his heart is in his throat, blood rushing loudly in his ears. This might actually be a colossal fucking error, one that gets him sent to juvy or some other bullshit. Which, on the plus side, is away from his shitty fucking step-father, but more realistically, sounds like a hellhole where he’ll be made resident bitch to bigger and cooler thirteen-year-olds. Ray couldn’t handle that embarrassment. “Hey, so—“

“Not now, Ray,” Brad says, and then he kicks both feet out at the rear window with a loud thud, leveraging his back against the glass and mesh blocking them from the front seat. Ray watches him, wondering how the fuck this moment got so far away from him, and then he thinks—oh yeah, it’s because Brad’s fucking  _boiling lava hot,_ and Ray thinks with his cock. “Watch the door.”

Brad kicks out at the window again, and Ray snaps his eyes towards the door of the bar. “Nothing. No one’s there.”  

“Right,” Brad grunts, and with one more kick, a corner of the window gives way.

“Holy shit,” Ray breathes.

“Yeah,” Brad agrees, giving two more swift kicks to the window. “Marine,” he says like that’s an explanation, and Ray would be fattening up in his shorts except for how he’s scared shitless that they’re gonna get caught. “Let’s go.”

Brad throws himself out the back, and Ray sort of thinks that’s it, except for how Brad then turns around and drags Ray out behind him. He’s got a tight grip on Ray’s wrist as they run, Brad half dragging him down the street and through a dirt lot, and into someone’s yard.

Ray thinks he’d have stopped running a long time ago if it weren’t for Brad and for the adrenaline. He goes along with it, though, and can’t stop thinking about how tight Brad’s fingers are around his wrist. He wonders how old Brad is, and if Brad’s the kind of guy who would sleep with a sixteen-year-old. It’s fucked, Ray knows, but he’s a piece of immoral, backwater trailer trash with no other option for getting some, and he’d take it if Brad were offering, or if Brad weren’t fucking sprinting him to an early grave.

“Why’d you need to get out so bad, anyway?” Ray gasps out, breathing hard. Ray was facing nothing, just a slap on the wrist before being sent home to his mom and fucking Michael, and Brad seemed pretty rattled considering he was probably only looking at a misdemeanor. “Long-limbed motherfucker.”

“I want to be a Recon Marine. An arrest record means you can’t get the clearance,” Brad says, and then he herds Ray to the left, over a low, dilapidated brick wall and into another back yard. They cut around to the front.

Brad looks up and down the street. Ray does, too, but he doesn’t see anything, just his shitty hometown.

“I think we’re good,” Ray says, and Brad looks at him for a long second.

“You’ve got balls,” he says.

“Trust me, I know,” Ray replies with a leer, but Brad doesn’t bite.

“Your shoulders okay?”

“Fuckin’ A, homes,” Ray complains.

“Right,” Brad says, and Ray would think that this is where Brad thanks him, except Ray knows better. “Well, here’s to hoping I never see you again.”

“Sucks to be you, ‘cause I’m signing up for the Marines first thing tomorrow,” Ray says like a threat.

“We actually just filled our quota of Whiskey Tango, on the lam, teeny-tiny Skeletor string beans from Bum Fuck Nowhere, Missouri,” Brad tells him.

“First of all,” Ray says, “Skeletor was totally jacked, do you not have a fucking tv? And secondly, fuck you.”

And then Brad—

Brad lets his eyes drag over Ray’s body, head to toe and then back again, and Ray  _knows_  he’s nothing to look at, not like Brad with his big fucking biceps and his broad shoulders and, probably, his giant fucking cock, but still. Brad looks, and Ray likes him looking.

“Maybe when you’re older,” Brad says, and then he smiles—real and wide, showing off his perfect teeth, his eyes creasing at the corners—and then he turns around, ducks down a side street with nothing more than a wave tossed over his shoulder.

“Shee-yit,” Ray says, and then he hisses a breath in through his teeth as he adjusts his junk in his jeans. He just ran from the motherfucking  _cops_ , and he did it with the hottest fucking guy he’s ever seen in his life. Who cares if none of his shitty friends are gonna believe him; Brad was fucking  _it_. Too good to be true, almost, except there he was, and there he went, and Ray’s already planning on cranking one out later that night to the thought of Brad hauling him out of the back of the cop car.

In the distance, a police siren goes off, and Ray startles.

“Oh, shit. Yeah,” he says to himself, and starts jogging down the street before turning sharply to cut through a back yard.

Recon Marines. That’s what Brad was so keyed up over. Maybe Ray’ll look into it, just to see what it’s about.

Just for something to do.


	14. Brad/Ray; College AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who said, [Brad/Ray college AU because I'm boring and predictable.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/174403456152/bradray-college-au-because-im-boring-and) I am too! lol

It’s hot out in the quad.

Brad’s lying shirtless on a beach towel, but his textbook is in the grass, and every time he goes to turn the page, the grass scratches his forearm. It’s distracting, but he tries to ignore it because Ray’s actually being quiet next to him, playing on his phone, and Brad needs to make the most of it. He normally never gets any work done around Ray; Ray normally never shuts up.

Brad gets through about half a chapter on electromechanical robotic systems, but then Ray’s phone chimes, and he loses his train of thought. Ray’s sitting crosslegged next to him, wearing a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses that Brad hates and a pair of cargo shorts that are too big on him and that only stay up with a cinched belt. He’s never looked like more of an idiot, but Brad still has to remind himself not to look for too long.

“Hey, homes, Poke says he’s having a party tonight. Wanna go?” Ray asks. He’s drinking vodka-Koolaid out of an old Pedialyte bottle, which he wedges between his legs so that he can tug his shirt off over his head.

“Probably not,” Brad says. “Game tomorrow.”

“Your first mistake,” Ray says, shaking his head sadly. “You should’ve chosen a real sport like I did.”

Brad snorts. “Ultimate Frisbee hardly counts.”

“Although, I guess it makes sense,” Ray continues, ignoring him. “Lacrosse  _is_  the gayest sport to ever exist. Historically speaking, that is.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Brad says, but he only says it because he knows it’ll rile Ray up, and sometimes—on rare occasions—he likes listening to the asinine bullshit Ray comes up with.  

“I’m full of shit? Oh,  _I’m_  full of shit?” Ray asks, his voice rising in volume. “Napoleon the Great even once said,  _Death is nothing, but to play lacrosse is to be a raging, cock-eating homosexual_ , but sure,  _I’m_  full of shit.”

Brad doesn’t answer. Instead, he shifts on his elbows and turns back to his textbook, resting his chin in his palm just to hide the slight upturn of his lips.

Ray barrels on regardless. “But you’re right, homes, what do I know? I’m just a lowly history major, paying too much to the institution of higher education, while you’re the wise man freeloading on an athletic scholarship for a fake sport that no one watches. I’m practically a peasant compared to you, Bradley.”

“Finally,” Brad says. “You understand what I’ve been saying.”

Ray laughs. “Ah, fuck off,” he says, leaning back and propping himself up with his hands. The movement causes him to shift, his knee pressing firmly into Brad’s arm, and since it’s so hot out, and since they’re both already sweaty, their skin slides and then sticks together.

Ray tilts his face towards the sky, the line of his neck stretched long. Without realizing it, Brad starts thinking about leaving a bruise the size of his mouth just under Ray’s jaw, the two of them right there in the quad. Ray would let him. Ray would  _like_  it, but Brad’s not the kind of person to put everything out in the open like that.

And who’d have fucking thought? Brad, with someone like Ray.

Ray, who doesn’t sleep or shut the fuck up or even study, but who can remember dates and names and places of things that happened thousands of years ago. Ray, who aces all of his exams but can’t remember if he ate lunch that day, and who knows everything about everyone just by the set of their shoulders, but who doesn’t seem to realize that Brad wants him to spend the night just by the way Brad kisses Ray’s bare chest and then looks away.

“What if we went for just a little bit, but I promised not to let you drink?” Ray asks, and it takes a minute for Brad to realize what they’re even talking about. Poke’s party.

“You’re the one  _driving_  me to drink,” Brad says.

“Yeah, because you still don’t have a fucking  _car_ ,” Ray reminds him, deliberately mishearing what Brad had said.

“Why do I need a car when I have a chauffeur?”

“I mean, point taken,” Ray agrees. “Especially since you pay me with your giant Viking cock. Homes, keep that up and I’ll drive you anywhere.”

“Ray,” Brad deadpans. “Shut up.”

“You don’t want me to,” Ray says. “You love me, homes.”

Brad snorts, but only because ignoring him won’t help, and responding to him would only be worse. Brad flips his textbook closed.

“Finished?” Ray asks.

“You should try it sometime,” Brad tells him. “Reading.”

“But Brad, I don’t know  _how_ ,” Ray says in falsetto, and even with those obnoxious fucking sunglasses in the way, Brad can tell he’s rolling his eyes. Ray shifts again, hardly ever able to sit still, and this time, he stretches out next to Brad, half on Brad’s towel and half on the grass.

Ray tucks Brad’s closed textbook underneath his head like a pillow, and Brad props himself up on just one elbow to get a better look at him.

“I’m gonna come to your game tomorrow, so you better make your Ray-Ray proud,” Ray says, and Brad steadfastly ignores the pounding that puts in his chest. He doesn’t move a muscle.

“I thought lacrosse was the gayest sport to ever exist,” Brad reminds him. “Historically speaking.”

“Well, Brad,” Ray starts. He gestures a hand towards himself.

Brad finishes his thought by saying, “You’re Sappho-reading, Edward II-loving, bathing at the Ariston Hotel Baths  _gay_.”  

Ray pauses. There’s a look on his face that Brad can’t quite place, and that doesn’t quite match Ray’s tone when he jokes, “And here I thought you never listened to anything I said.”

And the thing about that is, of course that’s not true. Brad listens to everything Ray has to say, even when Ray’s high as a kite on Ripped Fuel, writing a paper at two in the morning on Brad’s bed. Brad just tries not to be obvious about it.

“I don’t,” he says, because if Ray doesn’t already know, Brad’s not going to be the one to tell him. “I’ve seen  _Braveheart_.”

“Yeah, but  _Braveheart_  sure as fuck doesn’t mention the Ariston Baths, homes.”

Brad doesn’t know what to say, and so he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t like the way Ray’s looking at him like he already knows. Brad only just figured it out for himself; he’s not ready for Ray to figure it out, too.

And so, maybe as a distraction but maybe just because he wants to, Brad reaches out and places one hand flat on Ray’s belly. Ray startles a little, and from this close up, Brad can see through the lenses of his shitty sunglasses, and can see Ray glance down at Brad’s hand and then back up at Brad’s face. Brad slides his pinky and ring finger easily inside the waistband of Ray’s shorts, and rubs his thumb back and forth over Ray’s belly.

“ _Homes_ ,” Ray says. His chest is red, but not from the sun, and Brad doesn’t know what he means by that, by that one word that’s not even Brad’s name.

“Ray,” Brad says, and Ray smiles.


	15. Brad/Ray; Coffee Shop, Post-Series

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by quidam9 on tumblr, who asked for [fic where Ray leaves service and struggles to be content at any of the jobs he tries to do, until eventually he applies to work at a coffee shop out of boredom and TURNS OUT becoming a barista was his higher calling all along](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/175474583952/i-wish-you-would-write-a-fic-where-ray-leaves)

“You know, homes,” Ray tells him from the other side of the coffee bar, “you really should stop ordering all these lattes. I have it on good authority they’ll get you fat.”

“I order black coffee,” Brad points out. “You’re the one who insists on giving me lattes.”

“Yeah, but you still fucking drink them,” Ray says with a shrug. Brad can’t really see what he’s doing, but he knows enough about coffee to know that Ray’s dropping two shots of espresso into a paper cup. He steps over to the side, so that the espresso maker isn’t right in between them, and watches Ray froth the milk, his fingers wrapped lightly around the handle of the milk pitcher.

The first time Brad came here, to this little coffee shop outside of Pendleton, he thought Ray was fucking with him. Ray had worked a few odd jobs since leaving the Corps, things like being the night manager at a 24-Hour Fitness and a paperwork bitch at a kayak rental store, but he’d always turned his nose up at bartending.  _Can you fucking imagine, homes?_  he’d say. Being a barista seemed like an extension of that: just another thing Ray wouldn’t want to do, and something he’d be shit at if he tried.

But then Brad had opened the door and seen Ray behind the counter—not even working the register, but actually making the drinks—and he looked… Loose, maybe. His shoulders less tight. Brad loved and hated it in equal measure.

_Hey, homes_ , Ray had said, as if it had been just another day. He handed Brad a latte, even though he ordered black coffee.  _Learned the art just for you_.

And it figured, Brad had thought. Looking down at the dick Ray had drawn into the latte Brad hadn’t ordered, it all made perfect sense. Ray, here. Ray, the barista, drawing dicks in frothed milk.

_I’ve seen better_ , Brad had told him, although it wasn’t really what he had meant to say. Ray misunderstood, anyway.

_We can’t all have your giant, Hebrew-Viking horse cock, homes. I’ll get it better next time._

And he did. Or he tried, anyway. The art was still pretty shit, Brad thought, even months later.

Waiting for the newest iteration of cock art, Brad explains to him, “It’s a mitzvah. I’m letting you perfect your craft of catering to the novel-writing, Norah Jones-loving, latte-sipping socialists that frequent this shithole, and in exchange, I’m given eternal life in the kingdom of heaven without you.”

Ray rolls his eyes, but doesn’t bother to hide the fact that he’s smiling. “Shithole? This is a Starbucks, Bradley, and you’re an atheist.”

Brad doesn’t respond. Instead, he watches Ray’s hand tilt the paper cup and pour the milk in, one steady stream as he moves the milk pitcher gradually closer and closer to the cup. A perfect heart appears in the foam. Ray places the latte down on the counter, and Brad waits for him to start in on the next drink.

When Brad makes no move to grab the heart latte, Ray raises his eyebrows and then looks pointedly at the cup. It takes a second, but when Brad realizes what Ray’s saying, he feels oddly disappointed.

“Given up on the cocks?” he asks, reaching for the drink.

“You know, it takes a while, but eventually, you  _do_  get your brains back,” Ray says. “I’m trying something new, homes.”

“I’d say don’t quit your day job,” Brad starts.

“Fuck!” Ray exclaims, a smile wide across his face. “I completely forgot you were a fucking comedian, Brad. Shows at eight and eleven, right? I’ll try to make it next time.”

Brad rolls his eyes and turns to leave, tossing a middle finger over his shoulder as he nears the door. Ray’s laughing, which is good. It’s nice.

It’s not until Brad’s back in his car that he notices it, the phone number written in Sharpie on the side of his cup. It’s Ray’s phone number, which Brad knows because they used to joke about how the last three digits were  _666_. Or, well, Ray would joke about it, belting out his best Iron Maiden impression as they rolled the cammie netting or as he dug through the Rat Fuck bag for an abandoned MRE.  _Sacrifice is going on tonight_ , he’d sing as they were stuck waiting around in their Humvee, and more than once, Trombley had responded,  _Sergeant, can Corporal Person be the sacrifice?_

Brad doesn’t get it at first, the phone number, because the only thing it could be is something he’s not really allowed to have. He opens a new text message, scrolling through his contacts to find  _Retard Driver_.

_What the fuck_ — he starts typing out, but then deletes it. He starts again,  _What’s a WT piece of_ — but deletes that, too.

He knows what he wants to say. Or, rather, he knows what he’d say if it wasn’t  _Ray_ who who left his number on Brad’s cup. Or if it  _was_  Ray, but Brad didn’t know him and hadn’t been through the bullshit of Afghanistan and Iraq with him. Ray’s out of the Corps, but Brad’s still in it, and they still know all the same people. It’s still a risk, even if it’s just Ray.

_Especially_  because it’s just Ray.

It’s embarrassing how long Brad stares at the empty message screen. He could probably walk back inside the coffee shop and just ask Ray what he meant.  _Are you fucking with me or what?_ Ray would be honest; he always was, and always is.  _How’d you know that I—?_  Brad could ask.  _Did you know that I—?_

Ray might smile at that. He might smile the same way he smiled as he explained to the reporter,  _Brad got dumped._  Small and sad, the kind of smile that made Brad angry, especially because it had to do with her, and with him, and because Ray was the one smiling like that. 

But maybe that’s not how it would go. Brad’s in the business of being prepared. Brad prides himself on considering all possibilities, however unlikely, and preparing for each and every one of them. It could go the other way.

Brad thinks of Ray’s dimples as he explained,  _My team leader here? Sergeant Colbert? Yeah, he was born a Hebrew, and remains a practicing Christ-killer. So it’s purely out of respect for him I feel as if I’m gonna have to forgo your festive rituals._  His dimples were still there when he had turned to Brad and kept smiling, but it was different somehow, something just between the two of them, even with Trombley standing right there.

But that was never just it, was it? Brad suddenly feels as if he missed so much despite never missing anything at all. Ray singing Brad’s favorite songs during night drives, and always offering Brad some of his shitty MRE cookies. Ordering the turret with Brad’s credit card, and then using his own to buy paint, antennas, and filters. The way he’d start in on digging Brad’s grave after he finished his own, because Brad had meetings and command liked listening to themselves talk. How once he dug a double-wide as a joke, and was then uncharacteristically silent when Brad had just climbed in with him and gone to sleep, the two of them pressed tightly together at the shoulders.

How he stayed near Pendleton instead of going back home to Nevada, drawing lattes and lattes worth of dicks, and then just once, a heart with a handwritten phone number.

_Are you busy tonight?_  Brad types out. Ray will either know what he means by that or he won’t, and then the ball is in Ray’s court, to respond to it at face value or to take it as its meant.

Hitting send is easy, all things considered.

It’s not until later—hours later, when half of Brad’s platoon is shining their boots to pass the downtime and Ray’s probably just going on break—that Brad hears back. Ray calls, because all of his texts are in butchered English, the kind of character-counting, penny-pinching, high-school-girl-on-an-allowance type of bullshit that he knows Brad hates and won’t respond to.

“I can’t believe the heart is what got you,” Ray says, skipping right past  _hello_. “I mean, talk about your ‘plain undignified,’ homes.”

“ _Plain undignified_  is the devil dog who hangs up his weapon to serve iced lattes to teenage girls and stay-at-home moms,” Brad supplies. He walks to the other end of the barracks just so he’s not right on top of the guys, a dozen of them all eavesdropping because they’ve got nothing better to do.

“And clingy, co-dependent, newly promoted Staff Sergeants,” Ray counters. “You know, I really thought the latte dicks would do it for you.”

“They were an embarrassment.”

“They were  _great_ ,” Ray says, “but I should’ve known. It’s not like you to settle for anything less than the real thing.”

“Ray,” Brad says pointedly, because it’s either that or laugh, and Ray’s already wreaked enough havoc on the Iceman persona as it is.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray says, because of course he knows all that. “I’m off at six. Don’t be late.”

He hangs up, but Brad keeps his cellphone pressed tight to his ear for a few minutes longer, just to buy time for his smile to die down before he goes back to shining boots.

Plain undignified, indeed.


	16. Babe/Roe; Apartment Neighbors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by the anon who asked for fic where [Gene's work desk for studying is facing another apartment bulding and the window of a flat where one cute ginger weirdo lives and throws shapes on daily basic, while cooking, cleaning, tries to make his cat dance with him kind of thing. It's the funniest thing Gene have ever seen. It's also very distracting.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/176198374632/i-wish-you-would-write-more-baberoe-my-two-ideas)

It’s not that Gene hates Philly, not exactly. It’s just—

It’s  _loud_. Philly’s loud and busy and dirty in a way that the bayou isn’t, and nobody seems to know each other, and nobody seems to care. Gene isn’t used to that. Gene’s used to the water and the trees, and grew up playing barefoot in the fields by his house. Back home, in his little town, everyone’s  _bon amis_ , all the ladies  _cher_ and all the men  _frère._  Everyone’s family, where he’s from. They’d all go to church every Sunday and take turns hosting a big supper afterwards, and Gene’d always dress real nice for that, lest his grandmother put that  _gris gris_ on him.

Sundays in Philly, Gene mostly just studies.

His apartment is small, just a one bedroom, but it’s nice. He’s got all the space he needs, and a little bookshelf near his bed for his textbooks. His desk is under the window, too, which gets good sunlight despite facing the apartments one alley away.

There’s a redhead in the next building that Gene likes. Gene doesn’t know him, hasn’t said a word to him in his life, but he’s funny. He makes Gene laugh, always dancing in the apartment opposite Gene’s with the blinds open, and when Gene’s sitting at his desk, the redhead’s hard to miss.

His name’s Edward. Gene would feel weird knowing that, but their buildings aren’t that far apart, and one summer day, Edward had his window open as Gene was at his desk, and he heard it, heard Edward’s mother clicking her tongue and saying,  _If I didn’t make you this corned beef, Edward, I swear you wouldn’t eat._

He dances a lot. Edward. He’s not very good at it, not that Gene’s one to know, but he does it all the time, throwing his arms in the air and moving his body like a noodle as some electro music beats just behind the windowpane.

Not Gene’s kind of music, either, but Edward seems to like it, going by how often he plays it.

Sometimes, when Gene’s real lonely and real homesick, he’ll imagine that Edward were single and that the two of them met in a coffee shop. He’d be real smooth, Gene, and not trip over his words. He’d say something funny and Edward would smile wide, and would ask for his number. Gene would give it to him.

Edward’s boyfriend though—he’s somethin’ else. As Philly as Philly comes, loud and brash, always calling Edward  _babe—babe_  this, and  _babe_  that—and barking out laughter with his head tossed back.

When he visits Edward, Gene closes his blinds and goes to study in the kitchen. It’s easier to focus.

Gene shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and turns the page in his textbook. The lymphatic system. There’s an exam coming up, and Gene’s determined to do the best he can do. No point coming all this way just to take it easy.

Another page, and then—

Faint thumping starts up, the backbeat of a song that Gene only knows ‘cause Edward listens to it a lot. And looking up, Gene sees him, sees Edward. He’s wearing a maroon t-shirt stretched out at the neck, and a pair of slim jeans. He’s dancing with his cat, carrying the cat in his arms and using his hands to gesture with the cat’s paws.

The cat seems to accept her fate, and doesn’t make any move to get away.

Edward spins and then puts the cat down on the couch before shimmying his way over to the kitchen. Gene loses sight of him behind the open cabinet, then sees him again when the cabinet’s closed and Edward’s got a glass in hand. He waves the whole upper half of his body to and fro as he fills his glass with tap water that, if Gene were him, he wouldn’t be drinking.

It’s funny, though. The dancing. Gene can’t help but smile, and that’s when Edward looks over.

Edward jumps just the tiniest bit, not like he’s surprised Gene’s there, but like he’s surprised that Gene’s paying him any attention. He smiles wide and then waves, and Gene smiles back, hesitant and small, his heart in his throat.

Edward’s smile is even more disarming when aimed at him, and Gene has to remind himself that Edward has a boyfriend, even as Edward starts dancing more ridiculously than usual, swinging his arms and hips at the same time, alternating swinging his arms behind his back.

Gene watches because he can’t look away, and Edward watches him watch, still smiling as the song comes to an end.

When the music stops, Edward bows, and then picks up his cat and bows again with her in his arms. Gene claps silently, mostly just telegraphing the gesture through his closed window. He watches as Edward puts the cat down and walks over. Edward struggles his window up and open, and then leans halfway out, waiting.

It takes Gene an embarrassingly long time to realize that Edward wants to talk, and then he rushes to stand up and open his own window, knocking over his anatomy textbook and a bunch of pens in the process.

“Hey,” Edward says, smiling.

“Hi,” Gene says back.

“That’s it?” Edward asks. “You see me dancing with my cat and all you have to say is  _hi_?” 

Gene shrugs. He wishes he were better with words. 

“Not exactly the first time you’ve done that,” Gene finally says, but it does the trick, and Edward’s laugh is the best thing Gene’s heard in a long time. It makes him feel brave enough to add, “You’d fit right in at a  _fais-do-do_.”

“A who what-o?” Edward asks.

“A, uh. A dance party,” Gene clarifies. His fingers tighten on his windowsill just thinking about home. “Back in Louisiana.”

“Never been,” Edward says. “I’m Babe.”

“What?” Gene asks.

“Babe,” Edward clarifies. “My name?”

Gene thinks of the man with the square jaw and the loud laugh— _Babe_  this, and  _Babe_  that—and he almost can’t believe it.  _Babe_. That’s Edward’s  _name_. Or, his nickname, Gene supposes. He repeats the thought out loud as he’s realizing it. “Babe’s your  _name_.”

“What I go by, anyway,” Babe confirms. “What’s yours?”

“Right,” Gene says. “Right, I’m Gene.”

“Gene,” Babe repeats. His cheeks are tinged pink as he nods to himself. “Well, hey, I know you’re always super busy studying or whatever it is you’re doing, but d’you wanna maybe grab a cup of coffee or something sometime?”

It’s just like his daydream, Gene thinks, except better because it’s real and because he now knows that Edward’s nickname is  _Babe_. He wonders about the story behind that, and wonders how Babe takes his coffee and where he learned to dance. He wonders how long Babe’s been watching him right back, without him even noticing. Gene feels excited for the first time since moving here, since stepping off the Amtrak without knowing a soul.

“I like coffee,” Gene replies, but he’s not really talking about coffee, and he’s not talking about Philly, neither. Babe smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, “me too.”


	17. Brad/Ray; Pining Brad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted by the anon who asked for [Brad pining for Ray-Ray.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/176445088037/the-most-typical-thing-to-ask-for-but-if-youre)

“Don’t call it— _Hasser_ ,” Ray says. They’re all baking in the sun, using their downtime to fix some of the more pressing things that have gone wrong with their Humvee. Ray’s been in a monologue for the past thirty minutes, complaining about both the higher-up morons and his ball-stink, until Walt dared mention Ray’s pimples. “It’s called  _chacne_ , okay, homes,  _chest acne,_ and I was drying it out. This may surprise you, but I sure as shit wasn’t looking to score some Iraqi pussy by lying shirtless on the Humvee hood; I’ve got more game than that, homes.” There’s a loud thump and Ray curses under his breath. “And don’t act like you don’t fucking have it, too, Hasser. I’ve seen it.”

Walt laughs—Brad can hear it from where he is inside the Humvee—and says, “Yeah, but I don’t try to fry it off in the sun like you do.”

“Sergeant,” Trombley starts. “If Corporal Person’s been looking at—”

“Oh, don’t worry, young Trombley,” Ray interrupts, and Brad wants to tell him to fucking knock it off, because Ray only ever makes these situations worse. He doesn’t, though, because it’s Ray, and Brad usually gives him a long leash. “Your soft, pale Michigan body does nothing for me. I’m looking for more of a golden Norse god, you know? A real Viking motherfucker. Blond hair, blue eyes—adopted, and preferably Jewish, but I’m probably being too picky. Unless…” Ray sticks his head through the open top. “You wouldn’t happen to know someone who fits the bill, would you, Brad?”

“ _Sergeant_ ,” Trombley says again, and Ray slides around from the hood into the empty driver’s seat. He looks over at Brad and rolls his eyes.

Brad looks at him, and he knows it’s a joke. He knows Ray’s just saying it to rile Trombley up, just saying it to entertain himself. Brad  _knows_  Ray, and that’s the problem.

He likes all the things he knows about Ray.

He thinks about Ray, sometimes. Most of the time. Thinks about kissing Ray and touching his skin. He thinks about what Ray would look like spread out on the sheets of his bed back in Oceanside. What he’d look like on the back of Brad’s bike. Ray’s skin is pale—paler than Brad’s by far—and sometimes Brad imagines the bruises he could leave on Ray’s hips and the insides of his thighs, imagines the bites and the hickies and how they’d look. He’s never seen Ray in a hammock; sometimes he thinks about what Ray would look like, wasting a day on the hammock in Brad’s backyard, his skin pink from the sun by the time Brad gets back from surfing.

Brad’s known Ray for two years now, but this is new, and it’s fucking him up. He’s not thinking right. He’s been forgetting all sorts of things—to chip the sabka off from underneath the Humvee, how many hamlets until their turn, the radio ten code for  _repeat_. It’s a fucking disgrace, and affront to his warrior spirit made all the worse by the fact that Ray’s there, filling in all the gaps that Brad’s leaving empty.

“Ray,” Brad says. Just that, just  _Ray_ , because that’s all he can say. It’s a warning, maybe, or at least sounds like one.

Ray looks over at him, but doesn’t say anything. It’s not his usual reaction, and comes across like he’s studying Brad. For a second, Brad’s heart stops. Because if Ray—

Because Ray always knows what Brad’s saying and not saying, always knows what Brad’s thinking and what he’s meaning, and right now, Ray’s looking at Brad like maybe he’s figuring it out.

Ray’s smart, is the thing. Brad knows that, even though Ray finds it funny to convince everyone he’s a dumb little shit. But when Brad starts getting sloppy, too fucked in the head by his own damn thoughts, he catches Ray making the reporter chip the sabka off with him, their two sets of boots the only thing sticking out from underneath the Humvee. He watches Ray count the number of villages until their turn, and sees how Ray holds up nine fingers when Brad falters over the radio, mouthing,  _Nine! Ten-nine, homie!_

Brad looks at Ray, and watches Ray study him. He wonders what will happen when Ray figures it out.

Eventually, Ray pulls a face. “Shutting up,” he says with a mock salute, and tips his head back to nap.

His eyelashes are long against his cheeks. Brad hates it.


	18. Webster/Liebgott; Werewolf/Vampire, Monster University

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompted by the anon who said, [is there more perfect vampire & werewolf au duo than webster and liebgott? au where they are roommates in uni for monsters or sth and web is a werewolf of course, with his body hair and stuff, and on his no-full moon down time he is annoyingly pedantic, not wolf like at all. and joe is a vampire with his sharp angles and sharper tongue and he is a mess. just imagine them fighting and making jabs at the other's kind but when someone else tries it then it's on. only they can insult each other.](http://luxover.tumblr.com/post/176573097002/is-there-more-perfect-vampire-werewolf-au-duo)

Joe walks into his dorm room Day One, excited because his roommate is supposed to be another vamp named Henry Jones, only there must’ve been some mix-up because when he walks in the door, the guy setting up shop is certainly not a vamp. Joe can tell that right away, can peg him as a werewolf just by looking at him and his general hairiness, and the way his eyes are so goddamn big. **  
**

“Hi, I’m David Webster,” the guy says. His nostrils flare and then Webster scrunches up his nose and adds, “ _Blutsauger_?” like that’s the worst thing Joe could be.  _Bloodsucker_. So first thing’s first: fuck that guy. Joe tells him as much back to his face, and in perfect fucking German no less.

Joe hates him from that moment on, and everything else he learns just makes him hate Web more, from how he corrects Joe’s grammar to how he raises his eyebrows when he sees Joe reading comic books. Even the way he’s so fucking neat and organized that he can’t stand so much as a single jacket of Joe’s on the floor drives Joe crazy.

Once, Web used the word  _grandiloquent_  in actual, honest-to-god conversation. Web then stopped mid-sentence to explain,  _Grandiloquent. It means pompous or extravagant._  Joe hadn’t known that, but he hadn’t admitted to it, either, just rolled his eyes and said pointedly,  _Yeah, sounds familiar._

So, even though he’s a wolf, Web’s not  _dangerous_ , exactly, but he  _is_  unbearable.

“I sure thought getting a dog would be different,” Joe tells him one day, blowing smoke out the open window. Web hates it when Joe leaves the windows open in winter, so Joe goes out of his way to do it. It’s fair turnaround: Joe hates how Web plays classical music when he studies, but that hasn’t stopped him.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Web snaps back. “That’s incredibly offensive.”

“Hey, you started it,” Joe points out lazily, and then rolls his eyes at the way Web has the audacity to look confused.

So anyway, life goes on and they coexist just barely, but nobody gets killed, which is nice, especially considering how frequently they argue. Not that Joe would exactly mind it if Web got killed. A single would be nice.

And then one day, as Joe’s sitting at his desk writing a paper, balancing his chair on its hind two legs, Web walks in looking all wind blown, hair damp and sticking to his forehead, shirt soaked. Joe can see his goosebumps even though wolves run hot. Thunder claps outside.

“How’s the weather, Web?” Joe asks, just to be a dick. 

“Overcast, so you should love it,” Web shoots back, and then he turns around to strip off his tee in favor of a dry one. It’s dumb, because Joe has no problem walking in the sun, and he opens his mouth to say as much when he notices the strong lines of Web’s back, the muscle of his sides. Vamps aren’t built like that; Joe’s wiry, all lean muscle and sharp angles, nothing to look at. But Web—

And then Web turns around, dry shirt half over his head, hairy chest on display. He’s got hair on his belly, too, leading down past his belt. He struggles the bottom half of his shirt down.

Joe swallows and his throat sticks. He feels blindsided.

“Wet dog,” Joe says, searching for some semblance of normalcy. He waves a hand in the air. “Lovely.”

Web just snaps. “God, what is wrong with you? I said I was sorry; I didn’t know that was something I wasn’t supposed to—”

And then he pauses. He looks at Joe looking back.

“What?” Joe asks.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Joe asks like a _fuck you_.

“Like you—” Web‘s nostrils flare a little. His mouth drops open with the realization. “Really? I thought you hated me.”

“Fuck you,“ Joe says this time, and then they do. Twice.

That’s how it starts, anyway. A lot of fucking and not talking, but then sometimes they do talk, and it turns out that Web is actually funny. He makes jokes about sleeping with Joe in the summer, when it’s sticky hot outside and Joe’s skin is still cold as ice, and about his own hair clogging the shower drain as the full moon approaches. And even though he still tends to be be a pedantic, pretentious piece of shit, it turns out he doesn’t even realize it. Guy’s just really passionate about his love of the Oxford comma and his dislike of dog-based name-calling. Go figure.

So they start fucking on the regular, and then gradually start talking on the regular. Joe helps Web with his German—the one thing Web isn’t perfect at—and Web edits some of Joe’s papers. They’re not  _best friends_  or anything, but they’re  _something_ , even if they still fight all the time.

Web’s still the same holier-than-thou wolf he was when Joe met him, even though they fuck enough to almost make up for it.

“He’s the fuckin’ worst,” Joe says after a full-moon fight. He’s talking about Web. He’s watching Web, too, playing darts across the crowded common room with Heffron, the two of them laughing and standing too close. Web had come home that morning with dark circles under his eyes, looking scratched and beat up to hell, and laughed when Joe said maybe he’d tag along next full moon. Vamps are known to run, sometimes; it’s not unheard of, but fuck Joe for even suggesting it. And fuck Web too, for that matter.

“Who?” Luz asks, and then he gestures with a highlighter. “Heffron? I thought you suckers all stuck together.”

Joe rolls his eyes, and then digs in his pocket for a cigarette. He wasn’t talking about fucking  _Heffron_. He barely  _knows_  Heffron. Just because they’re both vamps, doesn’t mean they have to do all the same extracurriculars or whatever.

But what the fuck does Luz know? He’s a shifter, not a genius.

“Not him,” Joe says, placing a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “Web. The fuckin’… He’s the most annoying Lyco I’ve ever fuckin’ met. Like his shit don’t stink.”

“Aren’t you guys roommates?” Luz asks.

Joe pats down his pockets for his lighter, but can’t find it. He knows he had it yesterday, when Web got back from  _Intro to Egotism_  and they made out on Joe’s bed before the full moon. Web had tugged Joe’s pants down and when the lighter tumbled out of Joe’s pocket, he gestured to the art on the side and said,  _Dick Tracy, really?_  Like he’s so much better than Joe because he reads shit written a hundred years ago. Joe can’t stand him.  _You’re focusing on the wrong dick, there, Web,_ Joe had told him, and kicked his pants and his lighter off the foot of the bed. They stopped talking after that.

“Ah, fuck,” Joe says about his lighter, tucking the unlit cigarette behind his ear. Across the common room, Webster says something to Doc Roe, the healer. Doc must say something back, because then Webster laughs, loud and unrestrained, as if no one were trying to fucking study twenty feet away. To Luz, Joe replies, “Unfortunately, yeah. Me and the moony.”

He looks over. Luz is gone and Joe Toye is sitting across from him, slouching back easily in the way only Luz can.

“Bet you could use my brass knuckles now,” Toye says, straightening up and leaning forward on his elbows, the corners of his mouth downturned. Joe rolls his eyes.

“Not half bad,” he admits.

A loud shout, and across the room, Heffron is celebrating. Web is smiling but shaking his head, his hair sticking up everywhere, and chest hair showing where he stopped buttoning his shirt. That’s wolves, though, Joe supposes: hairy no matter what day of the moon it is. Joe hates that he likes it, and hates that he just so happened to get saddled with the one wolf who thinks his brain is bigger than his bark  _and_  his bite.

“Hey. If I can’t be my boyfriend, who can I be?” Luz-as-Toye asks, and tosses his highlighter down on his open textbook. They’re not really studying, anyway; the common room is too loud, with the tv on, and Malarkey keeps teleporting Muck and Penkala away into the girls’ dorm and then back again. Plus, Webster and his fucking laugh. Joe hates his laugh.

“Literally anybody,” Joe says drily.

As if to make a point, Toye picks up his ratty plastic water bottle to take a sip, and Gonorrhea puts it down.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bill says. “Ya dirty rat. It was a  _joke_. Christ, even Sobel has a better sense of humor than you, and he’s a hobgoblin.”

“I think he prefers the Jewish term  _Mazikeen_ ,” Joe deadpans, still staring down Web.

Across the common room, Web notices Joe watching and he nods, smiles a little. Joe just stares back for a minute and then turns away. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Web start to head over.

“Great,” Joe says under his breath.

Luz, as Bill, puts his hand out and presses it into Joe’s chest. “I got this.”

Joe knocks his hand away and rolls his eyes. “You don’t got shit,” he says, and then that’s it, Web’s there.

“Hey,” Web says. “Joe, can I talk to you?”

“S’a free country.” Joe smiles and shows his teeth—the fangs—because Web’ll probably hate it.

Web breathes out loudly and combs his fingers through his hair. Joe’s eyes follow the movement; guy’s got some delicate wrists for such a strong creature. Web looks away and then back at Joe.

“I meant in private,” Web clarifies.

Bill cuts in. “Just so’s you know, now’s not really a good time. Joe here and I are studying.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Web says, “but—”

“Ain’t no  _but_ s, puppy,” Bill says, and  _that_ —

“The fuck did you just call him?” Joe interrupts.  _Puppy_  is a softball of an insult, mostly used by kids on the playground, but Web fucking hates that shit, the demeaning terms that make him out to be nothing more than a dog.

“It was a  _joke_ ,” Bill says, sounding more and more like Luz, until suddenly, Luz is the one sitting there.

“Oh. Hey, Luz,” Web says easily, like he’s not even offended, and maybe he’s not, maybe he just gets heated when Joe’s the one saying it, but at any rate, Joe’s heard enough.

“Don’t fucking call him that,” Joe says.

Luz holds up to hands in a gesture of peace. “I didn’t mean anything by it!  _You’re_  the one who called him a moony.”

“Practically a term of endearment, coming from Lieb,” Web says, and that’s when Joe scoffs.

_A term of endearment?_  Fuck, the full really did a number on Web this time.

“Ah, I get it,” Luz says, and slides out of his chair.

As Luz gathers up his textbooks, Joe asks, “Get  _what_?” but Luz doesn’t answer, just claps Web on the back as he goes.

Web takes Luz’s seat. Joe moves the cigarette from behind his ear to his lips before remembering he doesn’t have a way to light it.

“Here,” Web says, digging in his pocket before pulling out Joe’s  _Dick Tracy_  lighter. “Found it mixed up with my stuff.”

Joe takes the lighter. He wants to say thank you, but doesn’t really know how to, and is still pissed, besides. So he just obnoxiously salutes Web instead.

“Hey. About earlier. I didn’t mean…” Web says.

“No sweat,” Joe says, because fuck if he’s going to let Web see him down.

“No, I mean,” Web starts again. “It’s not that I don’t want—I thought you were being sardonic.”

“Well, I wasn’t.”

Then, almost as if Web wants Joe to laugh, he mocks himself by putting on airs and saying, “Sardonic. It means sarcastic or cynical.”

Joe breathes out a laugh that he hides by pressing the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. “One hell of an apology,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” Web admits. “Come out with me next full moon?”

Joe shrugs. “What the hell,” he says, and lights up his smoke. 


End file.
